Can Your eDNA be Harvested from Air/Water for Potential Misuse? | Environmental DNA and Bioethics
What is eDNA ? | Environmental DNA | Ethical Concerns | Patient Consent | DNA sequencing | Ethical Implications
By definition, “eDNA” or environmental DNA comprises genetic material obtained directly from air, water, soil, and other environmental samples without any obvious signs of the source material. Although eDNA research provides a non-invasive and economic approach for applications such as biodiversity monitoring, it can be easily misused if the appropriate guidelines are not formulated in a timely manner.
A recent paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution shows how easy it is to retrieve human eDNA samples from the air present inside a room, from a water source, or from human footprints.
How can eDNA be misused?
Imagine this situation: After getting your MBA from Harvard Business School, you get hired by a California-based health insurance firm. To ensure massive profitability, you direct your firm to collect and analyze aerial eDNA samples from more than 100 U.S. cities to see how susceptible your clients are to certain types of genetic diseases and disorders that require expensive treatments. Your firm uses sophisticated drones and ground-based equipment to secretly collect air samples for eDNA-based analysis. You then use this information to formulate harsh insurance-related policies without seeking your clients’ explicit medical consent. This is a classic example of how insurance companies can unethically harvest eDNA samples to ensure high revenues.
Of course, we are not talking about science fiction here. A recent example involves the sale of personally identifiable medical records by a US-based healthcare network to Google.
What’s the fix?
The classified mass capture of genomic data from populations is a clear and distinct possibility, as evident from the examples above. Therefore, governments across the globe must make it a point to formulate strict guidelines to prevent the unethical use of eDNA samples for the creation of illegally exploitable genomic databases.
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Reference:
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4155... (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02...)
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