Why is DNA test banned in Israel? Are Israelis afraid to find out they are of European origins instead of ancient Hebrew like the Palestinians? Israelis are forbidden to buy ancestry DNA kits from the store without presenting a court order.
This seemed so bizarre that I had to look it up. And yes, a doctor’s prescription or court order are required. But this reflects a growing concern in many countries over the uses that uncontrolled genetic information may be put to. The US and France are among the countries that are currently looking into this question and considering restrictions. Some of the issues are:
1) Once DNA data enters the system it is public record, and there is no way to control what is done with it. No other medical data is treated like this.
2) There is concern that access to DNA data has the potential to lead to more private medical data being compromised.
3) More and more, DNA analysis is being used to search for people connected to crimes, by fishing through random data. In justice systems that do not allow ‘fishing for evidence’ by other means, this is problematic.
4) The potential to disrupt families exists. This is especially true in Jewish families, where matrilineal and patrilineal descent can be religiously significant.
As you can see, there are legitimate issues that authorities in many countries are struggling to deal with right now, in a field that has little or no regulation. In Israel, a doctor’s prescription is sufficient to get tested, so that amounts to “anyone with a good reason can do it.”
If you wander around the DNA threads on Quora, you will find many Jews, Ashkenazi and otherwise, sharing their DNA results. No one is afraid of anything. Our heritage includes Levantine, European, and ME/NA elements, and many of us think it’s too cool for words to find out exactly what our individual heritage includes. So your question about that is just silly. Only non Jews obsess about this question.
Why is DNA test banned in Israel? Are Israelis afraid to find out they are of European origins instead of ancient Hebrew like the Palestinians? Israelis are forbidden to buy ancestry DNA kits from the store without presenting a court order.
This seemed so bizarre that I had to look it up. And yes, a doctor’s prescription or court order are required. But this reflects a growing concern in many countries over the uses that uncontrolled genetic information may be put to. The US and France are among the countries that are currently looking into this question and considering restrictions. Some of the issues are:
1) Once DNA data enters the system it is public record, and there is no way to control what is done with it. No other medical data is treated like this.
2) There is concern that access to DNA data has the potential to lead to more private medical data being compromised.
3) More and more, DNA analysis is being used to search for people connected to crimes, by fishing through random data. In justice systems that do not allow ‘fishing for evidence’ by other means, this is problematic.
4) The potential to disrupt families exists. This is especially true in Jewish families, where matrilineal and patrilineal descent can be religiously significant.
As you can see, there are legitimate issues that authorities in many countries are struggling to deal with right now, in a field that has little or no regulation. In Israel, a doctor’s prescription is sufficient to get tested, so that amounts to “anyone with a good reason can do it.”
If you wander around the DNA threads on Quora, you will find many Jews, Ashkenazi and otherwise, sharing their DNA results. No one is afraid of anything. Our heritage includes Levantine, European, and ME/NA elements, and many of us think it’s too cool for words to find out exactly what our individual heritage includes. So your question about that is just silly. Only non Jews obsess about this question.