America
Blood Money Scandal at Hospitals
I
Samples from babies sold for profit without parents’ consent. BY ALICE GIORDANO
t sounds like something out of a horror movie. Parents are battling the government for selling
blood samples from babies to a variety of buyers, which have included the military, law enforcement,
and even foreign research companies. The practice is currently the subject of two federal law-
suits against state health officials by parents who say they were horrified to learn their baby’s blood was being stored either indefinitely or for as long as 100 years by the govern- ment and sold for unknown purposes. “It’s basically stolen blood,” Philip Ellison told News-
max. The Michigan attorney is not just representing a group of parents against the state over the controversial practice — he’s one of them. Ellison discovered the practice when his son was born in 2017. At the center of the controversy is leftover blood from
samples routinely taken from a newborn’s heel by hospitals in all 50 states, which is then tested for a variety of condi- tions and diseases. The tests are mandatory and costs are automatically
billed by hospitals through insurance and tracked under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Newborn Screening Quality Assurance Program. Parents said they just assumed the samples, called blood
spots, were discarded after the routine test, but that is not the case at all. In Michigan, Ellison found that newborn blood was
then provided at least 22 times to law enforcement bureaus, including federal agencies. According to the state’s ongoing BioTrust Research
Report, in 2021 baby blood from Michigan was even used for mental health and social studies. In one study, titled “Redlining Blood Spots,” the baby
blood was used for what it called the relationship between “structural racism and health disparities.” The most shocking evidence Ellison said he came across
is an internal memo obtained through a Freedom of Infor- mation Act request from a Canadian-based company dis- cussing its “70 biobank partners globally” that are actively buying newborn blood on behalf of multiple clients. “I am very happy to have found the samples that I am
24 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2025
looking for my client,” the memo begins. According to an in-depth report by the Texas Law
Review on the farming out of baby blood samples, the majority of states either have no policies or vague guide- lines regarding the retention of baby blood and the DNA profile created from them. In 2010, the state of Texas agreed to destroy 5 billion
baby blood samples as part of a settlement with parents after it got caught selling them to pharmaceutical compa- nies — but not before thousands of specimens were del- egated for various uses. Records show the state raked in at least $300,000 in
profits in just one year by selling the baby blood to private companies. One of the pending suits is based out of New Jersey,
where it was discovered that newborn baby blood, accord- ing to court documents, was being used to build a national DNA database — or what one of the mothers of a newborn, a plaintiff in the case, called a “creepy database.” In defending the practice, New Jersey Attorney General
Matthew Platkin compared the babies’ blood to medical waste — such as discarded nasal swabs and saliva kits from COVID-19 tests — and thus “fair game” for the state Depart- ment of Health to do with it what it wants. In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed
into law a bill that sanctions the long-standing practice of retaining and selling baby blood without having to answer to anyone. The only new requirement in the law is that they reveal
how many blood samples the state has in storage, and how many samples it sells annually. Despite Ellison winning a federal court ruling declaring Michigan’s approach unconstitutional, the status quo con- tinues while the state waits on the appeal it filed. The ruling made by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Ludington overturned a lower court’s ruling that the par-
PICTUREPARTNERS©ISTOCK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
