Democrat House Intelligence Committee member warns that DNA testing can be used as a bioweapon against Americans

Democrat House Intelligence Committee member warns that DNA testing can be used as a bioweapon against Americans

Bioweapons that target specific DNA are being created to kill people through their medical profiles, a Democrat member on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said Friday.

Rep. Jason Crow, a U.S. Army vet used the Aspen Security Forum as a warning to Americans about the danger of bioweapons.

His call is a repeat of one made in 2019 when concerns about China acquiring the DNA of American service members prompted the Pentagon to issue an advisory to the entire force against using commercial popular DNA testing kits to trace one’s ancestry.

” You can take someone’s DNA and take their medical profile. Then you can target biological weapons that will kill them or take them off of the battlefield.

The congressman said the development of sophisticated bioweapons is worrisome given the popularity of DNA testing services, where people willingly share their genetic mapping with businesses to gain insight on their genealogy and health, the Daily Mail reports.

File/A research scientist with an instrument that extracts DNA for monkeypox testing at the UW Medicine Virology Laboratory on July 12, 2022 in Seattle, Washington. (Karen Ducey/Getty)

“You can’t have a discussion about this without talking about privacy and the protection of commercial data because expectations of privacy have degraded over the last 20 years,” the Democratic lawmaker said.

” Young people have little privacy expectation, according to the polling and data .”

Crow, a former Army Ranger who served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, continued: “People will very rapidly spit into a cup and send it to 23andMe and get really interesting data about their background.”

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” And guess what? It is possible to sell their DNA with very little intellectual property protection or privacy protection, and we don’t have legal and regulatory regimes to deal with that.”

You can sell it off without any intellectual property or privacy protection, and there are no legal and regulatory frameworks in place to address that .”

Crow advised that there should be an “open and public discussion” about the privacy of your healthcare, DNA, and personal data. Because those data are going to be gathered and procured by our enemies for the development these systems .”

DNA service provider 23andMe has repeatedly stated it does not sell off customers’ private information.

This DNA test isn’t the first to be questioned as a security threat.

In Dec, we learned @DeptofDefense banned US service members from using genetic testing kits like 23AndMe.

I never want adversaries like #China #CCP gain access to the genetic code of millions of Americans and plan on doing more to protect American’s most sensitive personal info! https://t.co/lCez9NPrQg

— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) January 13, 2020

Concerns about China acquiring the DNA of American service members prompted the Pentagon to issue an advisory in late 2019 to the entire force against using commercial popular DNA testing kits to find out one’s ancestry, Breitbart News reported.

“There is increased concern in the scientific community that outside parties are exploiting the use of genetic data for questionable purposes, including mass surveillance and the ability to track individuals without their authorization or awareness,” the Pentagon said in its December 20, 2019, advisory first reported by Yahoo News.

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However, the Yahoo News reports and the memo did not specifically mention China as the primary concern.

But, two sources in Congress told Breitbart News that the Pentagon was concerned about China’s attempts to acquire DNA and other information regarding personal health from U.S .

companies.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: [email protected]

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