You probably didn't hear about this; I didn't until just yesterday, but very quietly, President Bush has signed into law a bill that, on the surface, appears beneficial, but in reality brings us closer to being scientific guinea pigs rather than human beings with rights.

World Net Daily reports that s1858 requires that the DNA of all newborn babies be screened.

"Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care. "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research."

On the surface, you might say, well, what's the big deal?  But as the article points out, this is about more than diabetes, asthma and autism.  If it stopped there, no one would probably be complaining.

"Not all research is great," [Brase] said. Classifying of people could lead to "discrimination and prejudice. … People can look at data about you and make assessments ultimately of who you are."

The Heartland Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening is one of the organizations that advocates more screening and research.

It proclaims in its vision statement a desire to see newborns screened for 200 conditions. It also forecasts "every student … with an individual program for education based on confidential interpretation of their family medical history, their brain imaging, their genetic predictors of best learning methods…"

Further, every individual should share information about "personal and family health histories" as well as "gene tests for recessive conditions and drug metabolism" with the "other parent of their future children."

As I blogged a few weeks back, a friend's sister recently declined to have her baby's DNA tested.  At least in her case, the hospital asked and, we hope, respected her decision.

This law makes that courtesy of asking unnecessary, and that makes me uncomfortable.

And I'm not being paranoid.