Battleangel

And guess who will decide what constitutes a “public crisis?” The same people doing the testing of course (and no doubt have a cosy relationship with those that manufacture the tests). This is some amazing privacy infringing bravado that most likely will have unforeseen consequences. The hypothetical scenario that the FDA presents sounds fine in theory and in a one-dimensional setting where you only have to find a cure for a given ailment (on time of course, as these people always use the ticking bomb model for argumentation). But in a time of regular DNA sequencing, insurance companies realizing the value of gene mapping, gene banking and citizen registries as well as immaterial ownership of your genetic blueprint, it would seem other and far more sinister factors could come into play.

In a public health emergency, suspected victims would no longer have to give permission before experimental tests could be run to determine why they’re sick, under a federal rule published Wednesday. Privacy experts called the exception unnecessary, ripe for abuse and an override of state informed-consent laws.

Health care workers will be free to run experimental tests on blood and other samples taken from people who have fallen sick as a result of a bioterrorist attack, bird flu outbreak, detonation of a dirty bomb or any other life-threatening public health emergency, according to the rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration.

Meanwhile, the US government is also digging into social networking sites like MySpace. Yeah, I bet that is really productive. Especially considering that site alone has 80 million users. They really like to set themselves up for unproductive data mining. At best, just a data mining fad.