Your Turn Infant Screening Program

Last update: November 19, 2007 - 7:33 PM

Minnesota's infant screening program is now at risk as the state becomes the battleground in the first big clash between genetics and privacy in the DNA age. What side do you come down on? Here's what readers said. To join the discussion, go to www.startribune.com/a3671.

This is not DNA testing to prove who is the parent of the child. This is vital testing to keep a beautiful, healthy baby healthy. The child is too young to speak up and choose this, and parents aren't always well enough informed to insist on the tests. If it isn't done at birth, it can be too late. Also, unfortunately, if it isn't mandated, insurance may choose to play the odds and not pay for it. Kmom

Speaking from direct experience: Minnesota's newborn screening absolutely, without a doubt, saved my child's life. On Oct. 28, 2006, he was born and seemed healthy and happy. Two days after we had all left the hospital and were settling back in at home, we received a call from our doctor that the newborn screening had picked up on something and that we need to come in immediately. Had he not had the newborn screening, he would have slipped into a coma and died before anyone would have known what was wrong. Luke Pherson

As a pediatrician, I can't say enough for newborn screening. As has been mentioned before, these screenings are for discovering diseases that affect newborn babies' health when early treatment can make a difference between a better future life or a poorer outcome. As a person who has seen what can happen when newborns do not receive treatment until it is too late, like mental retardation or disability, I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of such programs. Dennis Nishida

If Mayo and the local hospitals are so supportive of mandatory testing for all, let them be mandated to perform all testing for free. Then we will see how supportive they are! If any doctor or clinic ever even touches my children the wrong way without my knowledge and consent, they will learn the hard way about the power of God and life! Angel

Doesn't matter how beneficial the testing may or may not be to X number of babies a year -- parenting is a private issue, and the state has no right to trump a parent's right to raise their child in the manner they feel is best. It's why we can't license parenting, it's why we can't follow pregnant women around 24/7 to make sure they're eating healthy, and abstaining from smoking, drugs, alcohol, etc. It's called freedom. Like it or not, and sometimes we don't, the state has no right to interfere with my right to raise my child or my neighbor's right to raise theirs (even when I disagree with them!). Chris

What do you think they are going to do with the information they gather -- come after you in the night? And who is the "they" you are worried about? The government doesn't even have the resources or the infrastructure to keep track of the safety of our bridges. John

If people want privacy at all costs, fine, but they should be ready to bear the burden of the resulting health care costs. The taxpayers should not have to pay for the lifelong medical care, institutionalization and social services that can result from these conditions, when untreated. Karen

My granddaughter was born with one of these diseases, and I thank God every day that the condition was found early enough to avoid her becoming profoundly mentally retarded. Because of the testing, she is a beautiful, intelligent, little girl. Thank you, Minnesota! Tina