DNA for everybody?

[elliot]

This news item has just hit the BBC headlines.....
Whilst I have yet to properly research the topic, I feel that we should all explore our reactions to this centralized Government initiative might impact upon our genealogical interests.
I shall be interested to heard your diverse reactions, [more wise than my own!]


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1ljg7v0vmpo
https://www.crick.ac.uk/research/find-a-researcher/robin-lovell-badge

[Rena]

"16 hours ago — Every newborn baby in England will have their DNA mapped to assess their risk of hundreds of diseases, under NHS plans for the next 10 yearS"

It doesn't give any idea whether both parents will be notified of the results or would the NHS be the only body to know the results of the  DNA test.

Would they be allowed to inform the husband that he had not actually sired the baby that his wife was carrying..

They do say that new born babies look like their fathers - when I first saw our new born baby girl I thought she looked like my father-in-law. 

[Ayashi]

Paternity at birth was my first thought as well. It is an obvious extension of this.

And a generation later, the parents DNA will be in the system already.

[louisa maud]

Wow, opens up a whole lot of things if it doesn't go right, not sure myself. 
LM

[Biggles50]

This is the already severely strapped for cash NHS we are talking about.

With 600,000 babies born each year to implement DNA testing is going to require a lot of resources to go with a massive funding increase.

As far as I am aware the actual science is still in its early stage and limited in what it can predict.

To many ethical hurdles to overcome and many “what if” scenarios come to mind.

What if major health issues are found?  Do they also test parents?  If so when and why? 

Is 1984 coming to a Hospital near you?

I any case do not see any way that the combined results of the c600,000 DNA results would or could be made available for genealogical research.

Say they were released how would we deal with a vast increase in anonymous results i.e. “Baby114522062025”, “Baby12012206225”?  Other than a relationship using Shared Matches there would be nothing to identify them without vast effort and even then what value would they have in your family tree?

The mind boggles at the permutations.

[KGarrad]

Which type of DNA testing is to be done?
Diagnostic screening?
Presymptomatic and predictive testing?
Carrier testing?
Pharmacogenetics?
Prenatal testing?
Newborn screening? (In the United States, all states require that newborns be tested for certain genetic and metabolic abnormalities that cause specific conditions. )
Preimplantation testing.?
Paternity testing?
Y-DNA testing?
Mitochondrial testing?
Autosomal testing?

So many types of DNA testing!

[Pheno]

Would anybody want to know what diseases they are likely to succumb to as they go through life.

How might knowing that you were in for a terminal illness in say 30 years time impact on assisted dying?

Pheno

[PrawnCocktail]

The ramifications are endless. If you carried a recessive gene for some illness, would you want to know whether your prospective partner also carried it? And if they did, would you then ditch them?

I now know I've passed the "miscarriage gene" on to my daughter, so my grandchildren are IVF, but a distant cousin found both her children have Ataxia-Telangiectasia (AT) (affects nervous system, immune system etc etc progressively), and one of them has since died of it.

[louisa maud]

I hope parents  are given the option, could cause an awful lot of problems  I have done my DNA    but I am a grown woman

LM