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Combat in Our Genes?

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Dissent

Jay Stanley of the ACLU writes:

Born soldiers may say they have “combat in our genes” — but a new report suggests the Pentagon may want to give the phrase whole new meaning by turning DNA into the next military battleground.

The report, prepared by a defense science advisory panel known as JASON and reported by Secrecy News and HuffPost’s Dan Froomkin, among others, recommends that the military take advantage of the rapidly falling cost of gene sequencing by preparing to engage in the mass sequencing of the genomes of all military personnel. According to the report, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Veteran’s Administration (VA)

may be uniquely positioned to make great advances in this space. DoD has a large population of possible participants that can provide quality information on phenotype and the necessary DNA samples. The VA has enormous reach-back potential, wherein archived medical records and DNA samples could allow immediate longitudinal studies to be conducted.

Specifically, the report recommends that the Pentagon begin collecting sequencing soldiers’ DNA for “diagnostic and predictive applications.” It recommends that the military begin seeking correlations between soldiers’ genotypes and phenotypes (outward characteristics) “of relevance to the military” in order to correlate the two. And the report says — without offering details — that both “offensive and defensive military operations” could be affected.

Read more on the ACLU Blog of Rights.

The ACLU thinks this is a bad idea.  I think calling it a “bad idea” is being too kind.  It’s a horrifying idea that lends itself to discrimination based on genetics.  Members of the military should not be compelled to provide DNA for the purposes of gene sequencing and research on genotypes and phenotypes.  Informed consent should be required, with clear understanding of whether the researchers will inform participants as to whether any problematic conditions are detected (such as Huntington’s, etc.) as well as privacy protections that prohibit any other non-research use such as sharing with other federal databases, etc.

This proposal poses a veritable swamp of ethics and privacy concerns.  The concept that the military can “reach back” and apply any such decisions to the collected DNA of former soldiers is also horrifying.   Hopefully medical, privacy rights, and civil liberties organizations will come together to respond to this proposal.

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