“Combining DNA samples is the core of forensic genetic genealogy. The process rests on the simple statistical rules of genetics.” With the rise of forensic genetic profiling, ethical concerns include impacts on communities of color and more. Although this genetic profiling has aided in long-abandoned cases, consumers question the privacy and permissions of third-parties.

“It’s still too soon to try to make genetically edited babies because the science isn’t advanced enough to ensure safety, says an international panel of experts who also mapped a pathway for any countries that want to consider it.”

Nearly two years after the world was shocked from news of the first gene-edited CRISPR babies in China, a panel of experts has reviewed and deemed that editing embryos is not ready scientifically. A further report on the ethics is to come later this year.

The patients of Mayo Clinic, whether they know it or not, have seeded a burgeoning digital health industry with their personal data. Details about their care, from disease diagnoses to digital tracings of their heartbeats, have been provided to companies for training artificial intelligence systems to detect dangerous arrhythmias, pregnancy complications, and deterioration in the hospital.

Who should decide whether medical intervention on a child’s body is necessary? Ideally, the person who will undergo the treatment should have a say in these decisions. Patients themselves, even if they are children, should understand all their options and assent to whatever procedures are on the table.

The return is part of a groundbreaking approach that could inspire other institutions grappling with how to use historical samples ethically in research.

The Trump-Pence administration just made an unprecedented move to implement an unethical “gag” rule, prohibiting doctors and nurses from providing millions of patients with full information about their health-care options. This is a serious threat to the deep trust between health-care providers and our patients, and an attack on access to health care for those who need it most.

If no one reads the terms and conditions, how can they continue to be the legal backbone of the internet?

The average person would have to spend 76 working days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year. Reading Amazon’s terms and conditions alone out loud takes approximately nine hours.

Do you think you own your own medical data? Your hospital and doctor records, lab and radiology tests, genetic information, even the actual tissue removed during a biopsy or other surgical procedure? Well, you don’t.

It’s a good bet that the fine print of the consent form you signed before your latest test or operation said that all the data or tissue samples belong to the doctor or institution performing it. They can study it, sell it or do whatever they want with it, without notifying or compensating you, although the data must be depersonalized in their best effort to make sure you are anonymous.

The 4-year-old boy fancied himself a real-life superhero, wearing a blue T-shirt with photographs of his 4-month-old twin brothers, who were born with a rare immunodeficiency disease. Michael’s little brothers —  Santino, “Sonny,” and Giovanni, “Gio” — needed a bone-marrow transplant, and when his parents told him that he was a donor match, Michael told them that he wanted to save his brothers and would give them some of his.

The National Institutes of Health on Tuesday announced the launch of its attempt to enroll 1 million people in a landmark research effort aimed at developing “personalized” methods of prevention, treatment and care for a wide variety of diseases. The “All of Us” recruitment effort begins Sunday with community events in seven sites around the country, where people will be encouraged to sign up for the mammoth research project.