China Is Collecting DNA from Tens of Millions of Men and Boys Using US Equipment

aspi.org.au

38 points·car··5 comments

Us also does this to almost all newborns under the disguise of testing for genetic disorders. That’s about 4 million per year, almost the same number as China.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK132148/

You say this as though one would not expect that testing for genetic disorders requires DNA collection.

If testing was the only goal, then the DNA collected should be discarded. But we all know governments won't do that.

We need CRISPR-as-a-service to periodically change our DNA as needed.

That's unfortunately not even remotely feasible for a number of reasons. There's no effective delivery mechanism for large-scale changes, efficacy is low even when a CRISPR system does get delivered to a cell, and there can be serious issues from both on- and off-target activity. These limitations will certainly improve as the technology advances but I can't imagine that there will never be a tradeoff. I would argue that the solution to this problem is regrettably not technical.

Do you have any evidence that this genetic information is being used for law enforcement purposes? What I read in that chapter you linked only covers that the tests are being done (for a legitimate reason).

Not that I'd need much convincing; this is old hat for the US police state, which has police departments regularly scare parents into giving police their children's fingerprints.

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