Sir, – The plan to destroy the blood samples from over 2.5 million people born in Ireland in the last nearly 50 years has been rightly criticised in these pages in recent weeks.
The decision could not be more out of step with decisions being made in other developed countries. DNA sequencing technologies have advanced so rapidly in the last decade that it is now possible to sequence a human genome in a matter of days, for a cost that is dropping towards that of a single advanced radiological imaging study.
With these advances likely to progress further, large institutions in the US such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee have initiated programmes to acquire DNA from every patient coming through their doors. As each of us has at least 100 genes with complete loss of function due to mutations, and many more genes with more subtle alterations, the information from our genomes is increasingly useful for understanding how we respond to diseases, therapies and the environment. By sequencing as many genomes as possible, and linking this DNA variation information to health records, we gain insights into diseases in general and into the management of specific individuals as a consequence.
A health care system should be trying to provide optimal care, and this should involve understanding what sorts of genetic predispositions exist in the population being served. The 2.5 million samples of the Irish population is an extraordinary resource that should be prized, not discarded.
The concern that has prompted the decision to destroy these samples has to do with data protection. While this is a legitimate concern in general, it should be noted that we have many other ways to have personal data violated, but nobody is proposing the destruction of our mobile phones.
The decision to address the data protection issue surrounding blood samples by destroying them is purely expedient, and relieves the burden from legislators and regulators to be creative and to craft solutions. These individuals need to be reminded of their responsibilities before their expedient decisions become irreversible and deny the country insights into its genetic makeup. – Yours, etc,
JOHN M GREALLY,
Prof of Genetics,
Albert Einstein College of
Medicine,
Morris Park Avenue,
Bronx, New York, US.