The US House Intelligence Committee issued a stark warning to the American public to avoid taking DNA tests.
The threat was revealed by United States Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO), who told Americans to avoid popular services like “23 and Me” that analyze your genetic code to tell you about your ancestry.
The congressman told of a new type of weaponry that has been developed that used DNA to find and kill specific targets.
“You can actually take someone’s DNA, take, you know, their medical profile and you can target a biological weapon that will kill that person or take them off the battlefield or make them inoperable,” Rep Crow said.
According to Rep. Crow, these private companies get ownership of your unique genetic code when you send in your saliva to receive your test results. They could then easily sell this to a government or other organization who could use it to program the new weaponry.
“People will very rapidly spit into a cup and send it to 23andMe and get really interesting data about their background. And guess what? Their DNA is now owned by a private company,” the Congressman told the committee. “It can be sold off with very little intellectual property protection or privacy protection and we don’t have legal and regulatory regimes to deal with that.”
While 23 and Me has insisted that it doesn’t sell off its customers’ private information, it has sent over the information to law enforcement groups in the past upon request.
Rep Crow did note that Congress is currently working to address this modern crisis, saying, “We have to have an open and public discussion about… what the protection of healthcare information, DNA information, and your data look like because that data is actually going to be procured and collected by our adversaries for the development of these systems.”
But Crow is not the only US politician warning of the threats posed by DNA testing companies. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, has also said that these new weapons could be used to target a population through a food supply and would be very hard to stop.
“There’s a number of ways we can look at biological weapons and the need to make sure not only are we securing human beings, but then also the food that will sustain us,” Senator Ernst said.
Despite these warnings, many Americans already have sent their genetic codes to these various companies to learn about their family origins and health risks. What do you think the government should do to protect people who forfeited their genetic rights without being fully aware of the consequences?
