Owning Ancestry: DNA Commerce

Kathy Hudson's Genetics and Public Policy Institute has really got something with this one: a conference to bring public attentiont to the real issues associated with commerce in human DNA, understood in a rich way with attention to the problems that anthropologists, including Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, one of my favorite rising scholars, have identified. The event is at the National Press Club, and you can register online.

Chinese News Service: Brazilians Sell DNA Online

This piece is extraordinary: Chinese news agency reporters uncover the dimensions of the Brazilian government probe into online trading of Brazilian Indian DNA. This would appear to be an extraordinary extension of Internet technology in terms of commercialization of DNA outside the scope of the law. What Brazil will do to regulate or enforce existing regulations to restrict such commercialization is, of course, anybody's guess. Brazil supplies research subjects and organ sales to the world, with only limited attempts by the government to restrict such trade. Still, trade of this type in DNA samples goes far beyond what was alleged to be "colonialism" by organized scientific groups gathering samples from indigenous groups around the world. We're translating Brazilian newspapers who have reported on this probe.