Britain: National Patient DNA Database?
January 26th, 2012The document to which he’s referring is here: Building on Our Inheritance: Genomic Technology in Healthcare.
Via: Kevin Townsend:
You have to look long and hard, but eventually you find it. There, on page 51 of ‘Building on our inheritance – Genomic technology in healthcare’ is the one and only mention of the national whole genome sequence database. From the beginning you know it must exist. The report talks throughout about the benefits that will accrue to mankind from the widespread use whole genome sequence research; but it only makes sense if the data is complete and freely available. But not until page 51, and only on page 51, is the national genome database mentioned.
This would not necessarily require data stored locally: patient sequence data could be stored securely in a national database, making it accessible to the centres but also to the patient’s physician or GP.
Let’s be clear: this is a national DNA database. But it’s OK, because this is for health rather than law enforcement. And it will, yeah right, only be available to health officials, and health researchers, and pharmaceutical companies and academics and probably anyone who pays for it – internationally. The report makes very clear that if national research is good, international research is very much better.
It is, in effect, a national DNA database writ large. It has all the worst elements of the police DNA database combined with the NHS central records database and will undoubtedly cost a great deal more than both and be more dangerous and insecure than either.
Research Credit: RJF
