For almost seven years, the state of Texas has been indefinitely storing blood from nearly all newborns in Texas without their parents’ consent.
The blood collected as part of a 44-year-old state-mandated newborn screening program where blood from a baby’s heel so that the state can test for birth defects. The state used to discard the blood after six months and more recently, it was stored for three years before being destroyed. Starting in 2002, the state health department began collecting and keeping the blood indefinitely for current or future medical research.
These samples can be used by the medical community for things like cancer research, birth defect studies, and calibration of lab equipment, says Doug McBride, spokesman for the Department of State Health Services.
Parental consent isn’t obtained for the samples, because “requiring permission might be more costly and could require more time of hospital staff. But our real concern would be for the babies with detectable disorders that weren’t detected because their parents declined the screening—babies who had no say in that decision.”
Five dots of blood are collected on paper for the screening and then stored.
