However, officials who have access to the registry could obviously look you up. Hopefully there are controls in place to keep those same officials from having samples tested, but 8 doubt it.
It said the studies have to be approved by a review board and that the researchers have to agree to destroy or return the samples when they're done.
I don't think we should cynically assume "he knows the answer is yes." He may be hedging simply because he knows it relies on the word of the researchers.
But biomedical researchers have been sensitized to issues of research ethics much longer than internet/data science practitioners. There can be significant penalties for procedural violations and in my experience people do not tend to play fast and loose with the rules.
"I want to say no" he said. "But I'm not ready to say no because I know how humans can be sometimes." “””
To me that just reads like he knows the answer is yes and is just trying to soft-pedal the truth. Moreover, since he’s literally the person selling the dna, it strains my credulity to believe that he hasn’t already known this, and if he had already taken steps to prevent it from happening, I’m betting he would’ve mentioned them specifically.
“”” "De-identified DNA" However, Lorey stressed that the blood spots cards, stored in the state biobank, are "de-identified." There is no name or medical information on the card, just the blood spots and a number. “””
Is he trying to sell me on the idea that my dna can’t be used to personally identify me?
That was a pathetic defense.