Texas to Destroy Baby Blood Taken without Consent: Via CNSNews.com .

Austin, Texas (AP) - Texas health authorities will destroy more than five million blood samples taken from babies without parental consent and stored indefinitely for scientific research.
 
The Texas Department of State Health Services announced Tuesday it would destroy the samples after settling a federal lawsuit filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project. The project, acting on behalf of five plaintiffs, had sued the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas A&M University System.
 
The lawsuit alleged that the state's failure to ask parents for permission to store and possibly use the blood - originally collected to screen for birth defects - violated constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. The plaintiffs cited fears their children's private health data could be misused.
 
Under the settlement overseen by a San Antonio federal court, the blood samples collected without parental consent must be destroyed by early next year. It also requires the department to publish a list of all research projects that used the blood specimens.

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This year the Texas Legislature tightened up the procedures, providing opt-out policies for parents, extending privacy guarantees and implementing controls over any scientific research that uses the samples. At issue in the lawsuit settlement are the millions of samples collected and stored before the law took effect in May.

"As a result of this settlement, DSHS will destroy all bloodspot cards received by the department before May 27, 2009," the health services agency said in a written statement. "We will continue to be very sensitive to the privacy concerns of parents and the confidentiality of all medical information."

Under current law, the department can still use the blood samples for quality control and disease research as long as parents don't object. The department screens about 800,000 newborn blood specimens each year.

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