Guthrie Card for Newborn Testing

Mandatory newborn screening has been practiced in every state since 1970.  Using Guthrie cards, tests look at about four dozen proteins that indicate likely diseases and the state laboratories have archived the cards since screening began.  So, the ethical-legal-social issues that confront whole genomic screening at birth have existed with next to no ethical-legal-social fallout for more than a generation.  Largely the ELSI debate has been about terrible things that might happen but don’t, while the terrible things that do happen have eluded these arguments. MORE

Image Credit: March of Dimes and Cystic Fibrosis Foundation