Pregnant? Taking DNA from your baby now law...

[Subdivisions]

I don't recall seeing this posted or discussed so I'm bringing it to your attention.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080424-17.html

President Bush Signs S. 1858 into Law

On Thursday, April 24, 2008, the President signed into law:

S. 1858, the "Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007," which authorizes through fiscal year 2012 new and existing programs at the Department of Health and Human Services concerning newborn screening.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1858">S. 1858: Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007

A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to establish grant programs to provide for education and outreach on newborn screening and coordinated followup care once newborn screening has been conducted, to reauthorize programs under part A of title XI of such Act, and for other purposes.

And who sponsored the bill that takes your newborn's DNA and enters it into a database to do with whatever they like? Sen. Chris Dodd, that's who.

Who will have access to your newborn's DNA information?

-snip-

Section 5 -
Requires the Secretary, acting through the Administrator, to establish and maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening. Sets forth requirements for such clearinghouse, including: (1) ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly; (2) providing links to websites that have expertise in newborn screening; (3) providing information about newborn conditions and screening services available in each state; (4) providing current research on conditions for which newborn screening tests are available; and (5) providing the availability of federal funding for newborn and child screening for heritable disorders.

-snip-

As a child I dreamed of a better future. This ain't what I dreamed of.

[MADem]

1. The day will probably come when we are ID'd by our DNA. Like it or not.

Fingerprint/DNA. Unlock your house, car, use the ATM, buy stuff at the store, vote, pay bills, whatever.

It just seems to be crawling in that direction.

I had no choice but to give up my DNA when it was demanded of me.

No, I wasn't a federal prisoner--I was a career member of the Armed Forces.

[Mind_your_head]

8. That's 'revealing' in a way, isn't it?

I had no choice but to give up my DNA when it was demanded of me.

No, I wasn't a federal prisoner--I was a career member of the Armed Forces

----------------

Thanks for the insight MADem :-).

As for the 'rest of us', please pay attention to what/the larger implications of what she just said there. If you don't understand it, please ask in the thread or pm for clarity.



Peace,

M_Y_H

This is REALLY d*mn important. It's endgame.

[Subdivisions]

12. Imagine if after implementing all those things that you say

something to someone or you've said something online that they don't like and decide to flag your DNA for persona non grata?

[MADem]

25. Shit, I am already on the no-fly list. I have to go through hell every time I get on a plane.

Although, I caught a break last month--had to go to LA, and they were POLITE. No tossing my shit. No pulling aside. No hassle.

I later found out they'd just initiated this "Be nice to the passengers" attitude, and I caught it at the start. First time in SEVEN YEARS of a fair share of flying that I haven't gotten "the treatment."

We'll see if they've taken me off the list, or I just got lucky.

[IDemo]

35. Any idea of why you were placed on the watch list?

Contrary to popular wisdom around here, I don't believe simply being a DU'er will do it. I'm kind of on my own "no-fly list" though, simply because I have always loathed the airport experience.

[MADem]

38. Well, I've lived in some 'strange' places.

But then, I was working for Sam in many of them. Perhaps that doesn't matter to the mouthbreathers running our government.

It's definitely NOT "being a DUer." Being a Democrat, though.. :shrug:

Hard to say. I spent a lot of time in DC. Who knows which little GOP toady I pissed off?

It's impossible to know, now, anyway. Maybe someday we'll be like the Russkies after the fall of communism, and be able to see our "files" and find out why all those bad things were happening to all those good people!

[Ilsa]

47. You are in interesting company:

KUSA – Retired Major General Vernon Lewis, Jr. has served in two wars, was a Brigade Commander and holds a top-secret security clearance. However, 9Wants to Know has learned the Transportation Security Administration keeps confusing him with a terrorist.

"My credentials are impeccable," said Lewis. who has been decorated four times for valor and received the Army's highest medal for service, the Distinguished Service Medal. "It burns me up to be treated like a terrorist."

He is now retired from the U.S. Army after serving more than 30 years during Vietnam and Korea with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 82nd's 319th Field Artillery.

~~~~~~~

He's also partially disabled. An unlikely threat.

[madeline_con]

48. From InfoWars....

National “DNA warehouse” bill passes

AAPS News of the Day
April 28, 2008

Passing the House of Representatives on a voice vote, S. 1858 has been sent to President Bush for signature. The Newborn Genetic Screening bill was passed by the Senate last December. The bill violates the U.S. Constitution and the Nuremberg Code, writes Twila Brase, president of the Citizen’s Council on Health Care (CCHC). “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research,” she states. “It does not require consent and there are no requirements to inform parents about the warehousing of their child’s DNA for the purpose of genetic research. Already, in Minnesota, the state health department reports that 42,210 children of the 780,000 whose DNA is housed in the Minnesota ‘DNA warehouse’ have been subjected to genetic research without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”

http://www.infowars.com/?p=1782

[Triana]

2. What is the PURPOSE of this grossly intrusive bullshit?

I can't decipher it from those paragraphs. Or is it just vaguely unstated or just "whatever the hell we wanna do with it"?

[Subdivisions]

3. They will now take DNA samples from every newborn

baby and they will use it however they feel like using it. Will your baby have the genetic makeup they approve of or will your baby be predisposed to autism, or Downs Syndrome? Will they deem your baby uninsureable? Will they deny you Medicaid or other social program funds? Or, what if your baby's DNA shows a propensity in your child for high IQ or substantial physical ability. Will they follow your child and then sieze an opportunity to "enlist" your child for their own purposes?

Thanks forever Chris Dodd.

[Triana]

29. GOOD HEAVENS. That's so...Nazi! n/t

[jberryhill]

43. The purpose is to allow

...public health programs to provide amniocentesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amniocentesis

...which is a routine procedure for people with health insurance or the money to pay for it.

The bill was introduced by Chris Dodd (D), by the way, and passed the Senate unanimously.

We now return to your regularly scheduled paranoid nuttery...

[madeline_con]

46. Patients on Medicare won't get amnio...

It costs too much to have it done.

What's the real reason for this?

[jberryhill]

50. Oh, I forgot

The March of Dimes is teh evil:

http://www.marchofdimes.com/aboutus/14817_23997.asp

[madeline_con]

54. Oh, Jesus! That's not what I said, and you know it.

These things cost money some agencies, like Welfare will not pay, and the March of Dimes can't afford to pay.

[jberryhill]

55. Hmm....

Then maybe we ought to have a piece of legislation that funds public health screening for heritable diseases for which, if treatment is available early, the prognosis can be significantly improved.

That's what this is.

[Mind_your_head]

4. What BULLSHIT! Just say NO, NO, NO!!!! n/t

[villager]

5. Time to rent "Twilight of the Golds" again, eh?

n/t

[AlCzervik]

6. are the results shared with every insurance company on the planet?

how about nationial law enforcement data bases, will the info also go to them? I can see so many ways this is going to cause problems down the road.

[Subdivisions]

7. It's an Orwellian nightmare. And we're allowing it to happen. n/t

[AlCzervik]

9. it's just unbelievable really, i think we all know what the purpose of this is

and sure there are maybe some benefits for the baby who might have a disorder but let's be honest, more will not have anything wrong with them but the congress and Bush will play up the other end so it looks some excellent and caring public health service program.

[Subdivisions]

10. It's the ultimate breach of privacy. It is cataloguing our

very being, what makes each and every single one of us unique. A peice of every single newborn will be taken from them and stored somewhere else and can be used in any way those who have access to it see fit. Secret government cloning program? Genetic testing for inferior traits? Testing for potential future service to TPTB? I could go on but I think we all realize the implications of this. It is the endgame.

[2peaches2]

11. This was online a while ago and it has been happening

in almost every state for at least 10 years unknown to most people. When those consent forms are signed when the woman is at the hospital in labor it is included in one of them. I thought it was a lie until I did some research online. Here in VA. it has been going on for at least 10 years and federal funds are involved. Check out your own state and I am certain you will find out that for a decade this has been going on.

[Subdivisions]

14. That's funny, the pretzeldent just signed the law on April 24, 2008.

They've been doing this for 10 years without legal authorization?

[tsdraegeth]

13. God help us

.

[Subdivisions]

16. How 'bout some RECs in case others are unaware of this?

I heard somewhere where TPTB will eventually institute a policy similar to China's one child law here in the US to control population growth. Something like this could be a step in that direction.

[madmusic]

15. What would Carrie Buck say?

The law encompassed the "feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf; deformed; and dependent" – including "orphans, ne'er-do-wells, tramps, the homeless and paupers." By the time the Model Law was published in 1914, twelve states had enacted sterilization laws.

Carrie Buck, a seventeen-year-old girl from Charlottesville, Virginia, was picked as the first person to be sterilized. Carrie had a child, but was not married. Her mother Emma was already a resident at an asylum, the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feebleminded. Officials at the Virginia Colony said that Carrie and her mother shared the hereditary traits of "feeblemindedness" and sexually promiscuity. To those who believed that such traits were genetically transmitted, Carrie fit the law’s description as a "probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring." A legal challenge was arranged on Carrie’s behalf to test the constitutional validity of the law.

At her trial, several witnesses offered evidence of Carrie’s inherited "defects" and those of her mother Emma. Colony Superintendent Dr. Albert Priddy testified that Emma Buck had "a record of immorality, prostitution, untruthfulness and syphilis." His opinion of the Buck family more generally was: "These people belong to the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South." Although Harry Laughlin never met Carrie, he sent a written deposition echoing Priddy’s conclusions about Carrie’s "feeblemind-edness" and "moral delinquency."

Sociologist Arthur Estabrook, of the Eugenics Record Office, traveled to Virginia to testify against Carrie. He and a Red Cross nurse examined Carrie’s baby Vivian and concluded that she was "below average" and "not quite normal." Relying on these comments, the judge concluded that Carrie should be sterilized to prevent the birth of other "defective" children.

The decision was appealed to United States Supreme Court. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., himself a student of eugenics, wrote the formal opinion for the Court in the case of Buck v. Bell (1927). His opinion repeated the "facts" in Carrie’s case, concluding that a "deficient" mother, daughter, and granddaughter justified the need for sterilization. The decision includes the now infamous words: It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Recent scholarship has shown that Carrie Buck’s sterilization was based on a false "diagnosis" and her defense lawyer conspired with the lawyer for the Virginia Colony to guarantee that the sterilization law would be upheld in court. Carrie’s illegitimate child was not the result of promiscuity; she had been raped by a relative of her foster parents. School records also prove that Vivian was not "feebleminded." Her 1st grade report card showed that Vivian was a solid "B" student, received an "A" in deportment, and had been on the honor roll.

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html

[Subdivisions]

17. Carrie Buck would consider this tantamount to her experience. n/t

[madmusic]

18. I can hear her scream.

Almost literally.

[Subdivisions]

19. Thank you, thank you for the reference. Others are welcomed.

I would have done a bit more research on the implications of this but it's nearly 1am and I'm too tired.

I hope to see more from other posters on this ultimate theft of our newborn babys' privacy.

[madmusic]

22. Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL

(posted at every relevant opportunity)

[Raksha]

31. This is horrifying stuff!

From the "California Connection article you linked to:

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in the United States was a "lethal chamber" or public, locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, "Applied Eugenics," which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution . . . Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated." "Applied Eugenics" also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency."

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Ill., fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to 40 percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

And what is REALLY horrifying is that this mindset is very much alive and well in neocon America. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina comes to mind...

[madmusic]

24. Harry Laughlin's "Model Eugenical Sterilization Law."

Harry Hamilton Laughlin (1880-1943) was the director of Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor from its founding in 1910 to its closing in 1939, and one of the most influential advocates of eugenics in the United States in the twentieth century. Aside from his work on immigration, which helped lead to the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, Laughlin was also an influential developer of U.S. compulsory sterilization policy.

His Eugenical Sterilization in the United States of 1922 was the culmination of an extensive study into why most states in the country (California being the only notable exception) were not participating in the sterilization of their mentally ill populations. One of the primary problems, in Laughlin's assessment, was that the laws used by most of the state were highly flawed: they were either too poorly crafted to be constitutional (and many were ruled unconstitutional by state courts), or that they were too confusing in their wording to be used efficiently. To remedy this, Laughlin published a copy of his "Model Eugenical Sterilization Law," a law which was carefully crafted to be both constitutional and heavily used. A state law derived from his model was passed by the state of Virginia in 1924, and found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the highly flawed case of Buck v. Bell in 1927. The ruling greatly increased the passing of sterilization laws and the use of eugenic sterilization through the period of the second World War. State sterilization programs resulted in the sterilization of over 64,000 mentally ill and developmentally disabled patients by the time they went into general disuse in the mid-1960s.

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~wellerst/laughlin/ (contains the law itself)

[madmusic]

26. Carrie Buck & The Lynchburg State Colony

The director of Virginia's Lynchburg Hospital was looking through old office files in 1980 when he came upon some startling records: from the 1920s until 1972, his hospital had sterilized some 4000 patients. Most had no idea that they were being sterilized. Most had not given their consent for the surgical procedures that the hospital put them through.

The hospital, called at various times the Virginia State Epileptic Colony and Lynchburg State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, was the largest institution of its kind in the United States. It opened in 1910 and became a dumping ground for several sorts of people, including Virginia's poorest residents, teens from broken homes, and those whom state officials considered socially inadequate. Many of the people in these categories were labeled with a vague term-feebleminded.

http://highschoolbioethics.georgetown.edu/units/cases/unit4_2.html

[madmusic]

27. Perfect Babies and Fitter Families

http://medinfo.ufl.edu/other/histmed/stoyan/

[madmusic]

28. The Cutting Edge: Sterilization and Eugenics in California, 1909-1945

Few people today realize that at one time in this century it was not uncommon for mental institutions to order the sterilization of those they deemed unfit for parenthood, with or without the consent of the patients or their families. These operations were often justified in the name of eugenics, a branch of science that arose around the turn of the century and which posited that the control of human reproduction could improve both individuals and society. Although the eugenic policies of Nazi Germany, which included sterilization, are fairly well-known, America paved the way. In the years before WWII, thousands of people in the United States underwent forced sterilization. But this policy was not applied uniformly in the United States. One state led all others in the scope of implementation: California.

http://www.gottshall.com/thesis/article.htm

[no_hypocrisy]

32. Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feebleminded become the Training School

in Lynchburg, Virginia. Yeah, Jerry Falwell's Lynchburg.

And btw, the Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell authored by Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes has not been overturned. These laws permitting states to decide whom to sterilize may be unpopular but are still considered legitimate a state purpose until they are invalidated by the Court.

[AzDar]

20. Kick... ( out of disgust and disbelief)

:kick:

[Subdivisions]

21. We are now ALL suspects in the game of life. n/t

[tsdraegeth]

23. This is part of the ragnarist attempt to end life

Moderately lengthy, and continued in other posts on the same blog:

http://cronotica.blogspot.com/2007/02/fearful-mind-fear-is-multi-faceted-and.html

[tkmorris]

30. Forgive me....

But all I see here is a bill which provides federal funding for genetic screening for infants. Genetic testing for a variety of disorders is quite common, and most parents seem to be quite happy with the idea. I assume I am just not seeing the scary parts of this bill? Anyone want to point it out to me? Perhaps I am just having a late night "duh" moment.

[OzarkDem]

36. Problem with genetic testing

is that there's no real legislation in place that protects privacy and protects against discrimination based on genetic information.

A bill passed Congress this week that Bush has promised to sign that supposedly protects individuals from genetic discrimination, but it has weak enforcement provisions. The penalties to insurance companies and employers for violating the law are so small they can build them into the cost of doing business.

[jberryhill]

42. No, you're not mistaken

...it provides funding for public health services to provide the same sort of amniocentesis that people with health insurance get.

The idiot OP seems to believe that it requires federal intervention in every pregnancy, and is mistaken about that.

[Subdivisions]

44. Idiot OP? Is name calling absolutely necessary? Did it

ever occur to you that this law is subject to ambibuous interpretation in the same way that H. R. 1955, aka: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, is?

And just who the fuck do you think we're dealing with? Mrs. Butterworth?

[jberryhill]

49. Reading the full text of the bill

...makes it absolutely clear that it is a funding bill to provide for the type of screening that white people with money regularly get through their health insurance plan maternity benefits.

To post this as "taking DNA from your baby is now law" is idiotic. There are no two ways around it.

[ebayfool]

51. In Calif it's called "Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) Screening" ...

It's offered (operative word here!) to all pregnant women - those w/private insurance, as well as low income poor women on MediCal. It tests for potentially life-threatening conditions that might be treated or alleviated w/immediate medical care after birth or sometimes during the pregnancy. If testing reveals a positive result, the program allots funds for further testing ie: ultrasounds, amnio, etc. Poor females don't have access to this kind of care under normal MediCal, so the program serves a purpose.

My big gripe w/it is that the testing itself is so prone to error (false positives, false negatives) due to a variety of factors, but I guess that w/time the procedure will improve.

My duaghter just went through the testing for her 1st baby, & the OB screwed up the timing of the blood test. It has to be precise (the doc has to be absolutely certain of the dates) - or the new mom is put through weeks of pure hell waiting to get her results. My daughter tested positive for spina bifida in the baby, which turned out to be a crap result. Her OB had the blood test run a full 3 weeks earlier than she should have, but the program paid for a top notch specialist to recheck the baby w/ultrasound. Twice. We couldn't have afforded the man on our own, so I'd say the AFP program levels the playing field for poor women. If the tests had been accurate, the results would have been invaluable for preparation in treating the birth defect, the upcoming birth, a lot of things.

It's a worthy program, once they get the precision worked out. They don't force it on every woman/child - & I don't see anything in the OP's links that says this will be any different. They collect the data to compare, collate, improve, budget, research ... all of which I wish we spent more money on! It's not a vast DNA conspiracy, nor an information scooper to infringe on people's rights. The screenings are simply that - a screen. They are just a tool to use to calculate a risk. Period.

You're not having a late night "duh" moment. You're one of the few on this thread actually awake & questioning, I think!

Sometimes I think DU is becoming a flat earth society. Medical screening for birth defects, vaccines ... oh, the horror!

[WillowTree]

56. Nothing to forgive.

The paranoia around here has reached epidemic proportions.

[minerva50]

33. Terrible invasion of privacy

Just for instance, in earlier screenings of newborns, using blood tests, I believe almost 10% of the babies could not have been fathered by the man who's name was on the birth certificate. Of course, that wasn't disclosed to the parents. Nowadays you have all those insurance, health care concerns as well.

[kdmorris]

34. Unless they got blood tests from both parents

that is just plain bullshit. You can't use just one person's blood to establish paternity or maternity for that matter.

And I'm sure that parents would have noticed if the nurses started taking the FATHER'S blood in the hospital, too.

[undeterred]

37. This is freaking scary.

We have no privacy any more.

[LWolf]

39. I'm not having any more children, thankfully.

I have one grandchild, and am not likely to have anymore.

I'm beginning to hope he is childless; I'd rather not leave anything behind in the gene pool if that's the wave of the future.

[fed-up]

40. k & R nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

41. Strange...the Admin. that does not give a damn about our

medical care, health care, nutrition, housing, wages, or education is now
"suddenly" rabid over the condition of newborns?

[Ilsa]

45. My guess is that more women will try to homebirth.

Women are already tired of the intrusiveness involved in medical childbirth.

A common saying after having a baby: "Sure you can look. Half the town has already seen me naked." Referring to the numbers of doctors, nurses, students, and residence that plow through during labor, delivery, and postpartum.

This massive DNA collecting is outrageous.

[tsuki]

52. Will mid-wives have to take DNA? A lot of babies are being

delivered by mid-wives here because the cost of having a baby is too great for the uninsured.

[ebayfool]

53. Did you read the bill ... or just take the OP's word on it?

I see nothing in the bill requiring anyone to do or take anything. It's an option, prenatal testing, offered to well-off & low-income alike. The OP has put their own definition/spin on the bill - why? :shrug:

Till today, the only people I've heard pitch a fit @ this is the local wingers/fundies complaining @ paying for poor folk testing &/or subverting god's will for the handicapped babies this is designed to help.

Go figger ... ! :banghead:

[jberryhill]

57. These same people...

Are also probably against FORCING newborns eyes to be treated with silver nitrate.

Never mind that it has been the single most effective prevention of congenital blindness...