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10 Health Matrix 119 (2000)
DNA Database Statutes & Privacy in the Information Age

handle is hein.journals/hmax10 and id is 125 raw text is: NOTE DNA DATABASE STATUTES & PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION AGE Warren R. Webster, Jr.t I. INTRODUCTION The human body is the best picture of the human soul.1 ALTHOUGH WRITTEN WELL BEFORE the advent of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology, these words seem increasingly to reflect reality with each passing day. The con- cept of genetic identity presents new constitutional questions never imagined before Watson and Crick discovered the double- helix. These issues concern privacy and whether it can be pro- tected in the age of The Human Genome Project.2 The ability to collect and analyze DNA samples is a breakthrough for medical science and law enforcement, but it t J.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Law, 1999. 1 HENRY LE RoY FINCH, Wnr mEIN 142 (1995) (quoting LuDWIG WrrGENSTEIN, PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, 178 (G.E.M. Anscombe & R. Rhees eds., G.E.M. Anscombe trans., Oxford: Blackwell 1953)). 2 The Human Genome Project (HGP), also known as the Human Genome Ini- tiative, is a federally funded attempt to map the entire human genome in order to identify and eradicate all genetically based disease. See generally George P. Smith & Thaddeus L Bums, Genetic Determinism or Genetic Discrimination?, 11 CoNTEMP. HEALTH L. & POL'Y 23, 29-32 (1994). The HGP had initial funding of 135 million dollars. It is estimated that the project will cost three billion dollars and be completed in 2005. See Roberta M. Berry, The Human Genome Project and the End of Insur- ance, 7 U. FLA. J. L. & PuB. POL'Y 205, 206 (1996) (citing Daniel Kelves, Out of Eugenics: The Historical Politics of the Human Genome, in THE CODE OF CODES: ScmNTInC AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECr 3, 36 (Daniel L Kel- yes & Leroy Hood eds., 1992) and Victor A. McKusic, The Human Genome Project: Plans, Status, and Applications in Biology and Medicine, in GENE MAPPING: USING LAW AND ETics As GumEs 18, 18 (George I Annas & Sherman Elias eds., 1992)). 119