http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxmlDNA from millions of newborn babies is secretly stored on NHS databaseBy Carol Driver
Last updated at 12:29 PM on 24th May 2010
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More than 700,000 babies aged five to eight days old are screened every year for a number of serious conditions such as sickle cell and cystic fibrosis.
According to FOI requests, four million samples are currently being held at four centres in the country.
One million have been in storage dating from 1984 at Central Manchester University Hospitals Trust. It has about 250,000 in its laboratory which it plans to store indefinitely.
Cambridge University Hospitals Trust stores 400,000 samples at Endex archives in Ipswich and 62,800 in its labs – they are kept for 18 years.
About 120,000 samples are taken every year at Great Ormond Street hospital in London, a practice it began in 1990. It confirmed that it had occasionally handed samples, which it keeps for 20 years, to coroners but not to the police.
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