Investigation Says Texas Gave Newborns' DNA to Military Database

From 2002 until a lawsuit last year, the state of Texas took the small blood samples taken from newborns to screen for diseases, and saved them without the parents' consent. Texas always said it did this for research purposes, of which there are many. But there was a wee detail about all this that didn't come to light until an investigation published this week in the Texas Tribune. According to the Tribune, between 2003 and 2007, Texas quietly handed over 800 of those samples to the military for a project to create a database of mitochondrial DNA, which people inherit from their mother.