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The War Over Genetic Privacy Is Just Beginning

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“When you upload your DNA, you’re potentially becoming a genetic informant on the rest of your family.”— Law professor Elizabeth Joh

“Guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in the technological age.

All of those fascinating, genealogical searches that allow you to trace your family tree by way of a DNA sample can now be used against you and those you love.

As of 2019, more than 26 million people had added their DNA to ancestry databases. It’s estimated those databases could top 100 million profiles within the year, thanks to the aggressive marketing of companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe.

It’s a tempting proposition: provide some mega-corporation with a spit sample or a cheek swab, and in return, you get to learn everything about who you are, where you came from, and who is part of your extended your family.

The possibilities are endless.

You could be the fourth cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II of England. Or the illegitimate grandchild of an oil tycoon. Or the sibling of a serial killer.

Without even realizing it, by submitting your DNA to an ancestry database, you’re giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative—past, present and future—in your family, whether or not they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

After all, a DNA print reveals everything about “who we are, where we come from, and who we will be.”

It’s what police like to refer to a “modern fingerprint.”

Whereas fingerprint technology created a watershed moment for police in their ability to “crack” a case, DNA technology is now being hailed by law enforcement agencies as the magic bullet in crime solving.

Indeed, police have begun using ancestry databases to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

For instance, in 2018, former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was flagged as the notorious “Golden State Killer” through the use of genetic genealogy, which allows police to match up an unknown suspect’s crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database. Police were able to identify DeAngelo using the DNA of a distant cousin found in a public DNA database. Once police narrowed the suspect list to DeAngelo, they tracked him—snatched up a tissue he had tossed in a trash can—and used his DNA on the tissue to connect him to a rash of rapes and murders from the 1970s and ‘80s.

Although DeAngelo was the first public arrest made using forensic genealogy, police have identified more than 150 suspects since then. Most recently, police relied on genetic genealogy to nab the killer of a 15-year-old girl who was stabbed to death nearly 50 years ago.

Who wouldn’t want to get psychopaths and serial rapists off the streets and safely behind bars, right? At least, that’s the argument being used by law enforcement to support their unrestricted access to these genealogy databases.

“In the interest of public safety, don’t you want to make it easy for people to be caught? Police really want to do their job. They’re not after you. They just want to make you safe,” insists Colleen Fitzpatrick, a co-founder of the DNA Doe Project, which identifies unknown bodies and helps find suspects in old crimes.

Except it’s not just psychopaths and serial rapists who get caught up in the investigative dragnet.

Anyone who comes up as a possible DNA match—including distant family members—suddenly becomes part of a circle of suspects that must be tracked, investigated and ruled out.

Although a number of states had forbidden police from using government databases to track family members of suspects, the genealogy websites provided a loophole that proved irresistible to law enforcement.

Hoping to close that loophole, a few states have started introducing legislation to restrict when and how police use these genealogical databases, with Maryland requiring that they can only be used for serious violent crimes such as murder and rape, only after they exhaust other investigatory methods, and only under the supervision of a judge.

Yet the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—is really only beginning. MORE.

Public Health Officials Stumped As Southern States’ Vaccination Rate Continues To Drag

Via Zero Hedge

Less than a week ago, we reported that the US COVID-19 vaccination scheme had fallen dramatically in recent weeks, likely a factor of a drop in new cases combined with an easing of facemask requirements.

And as President Biden scrambles to hit his July 4 target to vaccinate more than 70% of adults, a goal that’s looking increasingly remote every day, the NYT reported Thursday morning that there’s one region of the country that’s seeing vaccination demand fall more sharply than the others: And that’s the deep south. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. But what’s even more surprising according to the NYT’s latest reporting, is that public health departments across the region have tried everything they can think of – public health meetings, church clinics, going door-to-door. In the spirit of offering raffle prizes to those who get vaccinated, one state even offered winners of one a spin around a NASCAR track.

But doctors who spoke to the NYT from states like Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi (all states where fewer than half of adults have gotten even their first jab), warned that the sense of victory that’s settled in across the region is premature.

“A lot of people have the sense, ‘Oh, dodged that bullet,’” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She added, “I don’t think people appreciate that if we let up on the vaccine efforts, we could be right back where we started.”

As of last night, the South is home to 8 of the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates. Several theories have emerged to try and explain this: hesitancy from conservative white people, concerns among some Black residents, longstanding challenges when it comes to health care access and transportation.

“It’s kind of a complex brew, and we’re teasing apart the individual pieces,” said Dr. W. Mark Horne, president of the Mississippi State Medical Association. He added: “There’s no magic bullet. There’s no perfect solution. There’s no pixie dust we can sprinkle on it.”

Currently in the US, everyone over the age of 12 is eligible to be vaccinated. Daily, vaccinations are down to about 1.1MM doses from a peak of more than 3.3MM doses a day in mid-April. Unless the US see a sharp uptick in jabs, Biden is on track to miss his July 4 goal of getting 70% of Americans vaccinated by July 4.

In some parts of the south, it’s unclear if that threshold will ever be attainable.

“I certainly don’t expect us to get to 70 percent by Fourth of July. I don’t know that we’ll get to 70 percent in Alabama,” said Dr. Karen Landers, Alabama’s assistant state health officer. “We just have a certain group of people, of all walks of life, that just aren’t going to get vaccinated.”

Unfortunately for countries that are desperate for more jabs, vaccines have a short shelf-life, with a three-month shelf life at refrigeration temperatures, millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are set to expire nationwide this month, prompting some governors to urgently plead that health providers use them soon.

In Alabama, Nick Saban, the championship-winning football coach, urged fans to get vaccinated so they could attend games safely this fa

Across much of the South, vaccine skepticism is pervasive. In Jackson, Miss., Felix Bell Sr., a warehouse supervisor, expressed concern about how quickly the vaccines were developed. He did not plan to get a shot. “At first they said it’s going to take several years,” said Mr. Bell, who said he had previously recovered from Covid-19. “And then all of a sudden, it was ‘Boom.’” He added, “They’ve got to get more information about what happens down the line.”

The big worry right now is that mutant COVID-19 strain’s like the fearsome “Delta” mutant first discovered in India could spark another vaccine-resistant strain to take hold and essentially restart thee outbreak.

“If we don’t get our numbers up, we could be where we were last year, sheltering in place,” said William Parker, the president of the Birmingham City Council, who has proposed spending millions of dollars on vaccine incentives and who answered questions about vaccines on Monday as part of an online forum for residents.

Doctors have warned that the low vaccination numbers could make the South vulnerable to another wave of infections. Some polls have suggested that reluctance to accept the vaccine is linked to political affiliation, as Republican voters are more personally resistant to the jab than Democrats.MORE.

More than 170 employees at Houston Methodist hospital are suspended for two weeks without pay for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine

Via The Daily Mail

More than 170 employees at Houston Methodist hospital system in Texas have been suspended for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The company put out a new policy last month, requiring all of its 26,000 workers to get both shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines – or the one shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine – by June 7 or risk termination.

Houston Methodist says 99 percent of its employees – 24,947 – are fully vaccinated, but a small group refused to do so.

In total, 178 workers who did not get vaccinated have alleged been suspended for two weeks without pay.

It is currently unknown whether they will be able to return to work after the suspension ends.

In a statement, Marc Bloom, CEO of the hospital system, said 27 of the suspended workers have since gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.

‘It is unfortunate that today’s milestone of Houston Methodist becoming the safest hospital system in the country is being overshadowed by a few disgruntled employees,’ Bloom said.

‘I know that today may be difficult for some who are sad about losing a colleague who’s decided to not get vaccinated.’

‘We only wish them well and thank them for their past service to our community, and we must respect the decision they made.’

Earlier this month, 117 employees sued Houston Methodist, claiming the hospital ‘is forcing its employees to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment,’ reported KHOU 11 last month.

They also claim coronavirus vaccines are ‘experimental,’ because they have only received emergency use authorization and not full U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. MORE.

Medical Journal Article Calls ‘Whiteness’ a ‘Parasitic-Like Condition’

Via American Greatness

A recent article in an academic medical journal made the absurd declaration that being White is a “malignant” and “parasitic-like condition,” with no “permanent cure,” as reported by Fox News.

The racist and pseudo-scientific claim was made in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA). The article, titled “On Having Whiteness,” was written by Dr. Donald Moss, a faculty member of both the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, who is himself a White man.

Among his baseless claims are the notions that White people suffer from an “entitled dominion” that allows the disease’s “host” to demonstrate “force without restriction” and “violence without mercy,” as well as an increased desire to “terrorize” others.

Describing Whiteness as “parasitic,” and a condition to which “White people have a particular susceptibility,” Moss also claims that the “condition” leads to “White pathology,” which makes “hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse.” The only way to “cure” this condition, Moss claims, is “a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions,” which “can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites, to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims towards the work of reparation.”

However, Moss adds, “there is not yet a permanent cure” to Whiteness, and “no guarantee against regression” even after his recommended “treatments.” MORE.

Virginia Tech Jock Kills Lover After ‘Discovering’ She Is a He

Via PJ Media

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter

Virginia Tech football player Ismemen David Etute of Virginia Beach was arrested June 2 and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Jerry Paul Smith, a male Blacksburg restaurant worker who dressed as a woman on Tinder. Etute was released on $75,000 secured bond and is under house arrest and electronic monitoring, according to a release put out by Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt. The FBI is now involved in the investigation.

Etute admitted in court to punching Smith five times before *he fell, at which point Etute continued to punch then stomp the victim’s face. An autopsy report said every bone in Smithy’s face was broken and *his teeth were missing. Etute stated in court Smith was, “bubbling and gurgling” as Etute left the scene. He did not call 911. He also testified Smith did not assault him.

Tuck And Roll

Etute and Smith apparently both swiped in the affirmative, (right) on Tinder in April, though Smith dressed as a woman and was going by the name “Angie.” Etute visited Smith’s apartment for oral sex. He returned for an encore on May 31st and killed Smith after “discovering” Smith was a man. Details of the “discovery” are not yet public, though a recently released video shows Etute and two others running from the Lola-like Lolita’s apartment on May 31st. Etute is the only one arrested thus far but the men with him are rumored to also be football players for Virginia Tech. Etute has been suspended from the school as well as the team.

False Advertising or Buyer Beware?

Etute’s attorney Jimmy Turk told the press, “Nobody deserves to die, but I don’t mind saying, don’t pretend you are something that you are not.” Turk told reporters, “Don’t target or lure anyone under that perception. That’s just wrong.”

Smith and Etute apparently knew each other but police haven’t released the details. MORE.

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