Gradually, every Australian’s DNA is aggregating through heel pricks into a national database. But no cohesive laws or firm guidelines govern use of this or other personal DNA data, which is controlled by a “spaghetti junction” of rules. Academics Diana Bowman and David Studdert, writing in the Medical Journal of Australia, call for new national legislation over Guthrie cards for the newborn: tweaking existing laws is not enough, they say.
NOTE: In 2008 CLA commissioned a research paper by Karlie Brown, covering similar topics.