Calls are being raised in the United Kingdom to stop the sharing of confidential genetic data of over 500,000 Britons with China.
Reportedly, under several hundred ongoing projects of the UK Biobank, researchers in China have been accessing ‘detailed genetic information’ and other health-related data of UK Citizens.
According to UK Biobank, the data is shared under its anonymised, transparent and non-discriminatory open-access policy for studies related to cancer, depression and even Covid-19.
When quizzed about the security of the data, UK Biobank claimed it had “stringent controls” in place including “rigorous access and ethics checks”.
It is pertinent to note that the UK Biobank project, launched in 2006 and partly funded by the Department of Health stores in-depth genetic information of close to half a million Britons. This data can easily be misused to cause damage
From 2012 to 2019, during the peak of UK-China medical collaborations’ China gained access to much of UK Biobank’s database. However, after the geopolitical equations realigned, the experts in the UK have been calling for the government to stop the sharing of data, even if for collaborative research purposes.
Professor Yves Moreau, a geneticist, warned caution over the sharing of data and stated that the UK needed to be watchful.
“We are totally unprepared for a situation where an institution and national authorities would support the misconduct of the scientist. It’s about being watchful, and looking into the issue to find a proper balance, so we don’t wake up in 10 years and realise, ‘Oh, what did we do?’” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
For an arrangement that relies heavily on the tenets of sharing detailed private medical information of individuals, the UK could not have picked a worse partner than China.
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After the pandemic started raging in early 2020, countries across the globe urged China to come clean regarding the origins of the virus. However, not only China remained opaque, it failed to share medical data with researchers across the planet, thereby allowing the virus to metamorphose into a global pandemic.
China has been routinely accused by countries such as the US of trying to steal gene data from across the globe. Moreover, in 2020, it was revealed that the Politburo had passed orders, allowing the collection of blood samples from men and boys from across the country to build a genetic map of its roughly 700 million males.
Read More: Millions of gene data harvested across world from women’s prenatal tests linked to Chinese military
(With inputs from agencies)
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