Conflicting Views on a Wider Police Use of DNA
By Eli Rosenberg,
The New York Times
| 02. 10. 2017
The question of how widely investigators should be able to examine DNA databases is in the news, as officials in New York deliberate whether to authorize a method that could help find relatives of people charged with crimes.
Called familial searching, the technique attracted support after the murder of Karina Vetrano in Queens, a case that stymied investigators for months. Though a recent break in the case that led to the arrest of a suspect did not involve familial searching, the push for New York to join at least nine other states in authorizing the method has continued.
Familial searching allows investigators to look through databases with wider parameters to identify people who are most likely close relatives of the person who may have committed a crime. After a relative is found, investigators work backward to find the suspect. Many officials say familial searching is an important tool for solving particularly stubborn cases. It has led to arrests in cases like the so-called Grim Sleeper in Los Angeles. Ms. Vetrano’s parents, too, have advocated its use.
But the method...
Related Articles
It’s been a busy couple of months in biopolitics, with developments in the US, UK, China, Japan, and implicitly on Mars. Time for a brief roundup.
• • •
Bioethics needs an update
The National Research Act is now 50 years old. It was signed into law on July 12, 1974, as a direct response to publicity about the 1932 “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” The Hastings Bioethics Forum celebrated its anniversary with an...
By Robert Resta, The DNA Exchange | 07.22.2024
Medical geneticists and genetic counselors have an often complicated and at times tense relationship with people with disabilities, their families, advocates, and scholars. Geneticists are strong advocates and supporters for all of their patients, regardless of their abilities and disabilities...
By Katherine Bourzac, Nature | 07.10.2024
Image courtesy National Human Genome Research Institute
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to encourage effective medical advances while also ensuring that patients and research subjects are protected. This dual mandate demands tricky judgment calls that are made more difficult by outside pressures of several kinds, political, judicial, and especially commercial. This April story at Bloomberg examines one deeply troubling pattern of regulatory capture:
Americans Are Paying Billions to Take Drugs That Don’t Work
Companies are increasingly...
