From an inventor-innovator perspective, emergence of storage in the system is a sign of great opportunities to come. Especially so, if it relates to information about a vast number of people.
Science Magazine reports that over the last 40 years hospitals accumulated millions of blood samples taken from newborns. Before, the samples were used in mandatory screening for certain rare diseases. Now, with the advent of DNA testing, these samples can be used, for example, for retrospective analysis of links between genes and certain health problems for populations of entire countries. [The situation is very similar to breast cancer testing I blogged about earlier.]
The new DNA testing capabilities create ethical and legal problems because in the past parents of the babies did not give their consent to tests that became possible in the future.
Thus, a dilemma: if the new studies are done anonymously, people will never find out about potential threats to their health; on the other hand, if the identities of the affected people are made known, they will lose their privacy and, due to limitations of early research, will be treated for possible, rather than probable, diseases.
References:
NEWBORN BLOOD COLLECTIONS: Science Gold Mine, Ethical Minefield
Jennifer Couzin-Frankel (10 April 2009)
Science 324 (5924), 166. [DOI: 10.1126/science.324.5924.166]
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