Gatto proposes law relating to blood samples

Seeking to give Californians more say in how their blood samples are used if held in the state’s biobank of DNA, Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) has proposed a law to strengthen the notice requirements given to parents when dried blood samples are taken from newborns.

All 50 states operate programs to screen newborns for certain disorders by taking a few drops of blood from their heels, according to a statement from Gatto. California screens more than 500,000 newborns a year, but it’s one of just four states where the dried blood sample becomes state property.

What the state does with the samples afterward may surprise people, Gatto said. They’re stored and licensed — without the parent’s knowledge or consent — to researchers who pay a fee to conduct tests on them.

“As a father, I always thought those [samples] were destroyed,” Gatto said in an interview last week.

While the samples are “depersonalized,” Gatto said there are “a whole host of reasons” that storing the DNA could be problematic, and he thinks parents should be given an option on what the state does with the samples after the initial screening.

Gatto said he thinks there is a “noble cause” behind the testing, but parents should get an option to have the samples destroyed or to keep the state from loaning them out for further research.

Last week, he introduced a bill that would require parents be informed that the samples will be retained and about their rights to request the sample be destroyed. The bill would also permit children to request the destruction of their samples when they reach legal age.