> This is a particularly incendiary way of putting this information out there.
Was it inaccurate?
Was it inaccurate?
It's not a "DNA sample" in the way that most people would consider it these days, no more than a used cup would also be called a "DNA sample". But to your point, it can still be used for surveillance and tracking.
Also, your phrasing is designed to make it seem like a huge overreach, when this act has likely saved millions of lives through early diagnosis of preventable diseases and early intervention on disabilities. I have personally experienced this.
So yes, I do think your framing here is inaccurate through omission of key facts.
Why does the state have to collect and keep the sample for that to happen? Why can't it be the private property of the parents, provided to whatever private testing labs are used to do the tests?
There is a process for people to have the sample destroyed, I also have no idea how easy or how often that is used.
as blood contains white blood cells, and these cells tend to contain DNA, yes a collection of identified blood samples is also a collection of DNA (molecules).
A DNA collection doesn't need to have been sequenced to qualify as a DNA collection.
So yes a collection of blood sample is technically also a collection of DNA sequences, but it has an expiry date (a short one compared to the lifespan of an individual!) contrary to a DNA sequence that's pure data.
OP made it sound like Cali was genome sequencing everyone born in the state and then storing that.
What's really going on is they're doing routine blood tests.
So yeah, pretty inaccurate.
the blood "spot" is about general morphology, and antigenic specificity.
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[1] Often mostly factually accurate, but I doubt you'd find much common ground with the particular spin they'd put on describing your daily life.