Jay Root of the Associated Press reports:
Texas health authorities will destroy as many as four million blood samples taken from babies without parental consent and stored indefinitely for scientific research.
The Texas Department of State Health Services announced Tuesday it would destroy the samples after settling a federal lawsuit filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project. The project, acting on behalf of five plaintiffs, had sued the Texas Department of State Health Services and Texas A&M University.
The lawsuit alleged that the state’s failure to ask parents for permission to store and possibly use the blood – originally collected to screen for birth defects – violated constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Under the settlement overseen by a San Antonio federal court, the blood samples collected without parental consent must be destroyed by early next year. It also requires the department to publish a list of all research projects that used the blood specimens.
Read more of this story on ABC News.