what would happen to the genetic data it had collected<\/a> from millions of customers in the event of a potential sale.<\/p>\n\u201cSelling that off to another company to profit without getting permission from the people whose DNA was being sold, that struck me as wrong,\u201d said Cline.<\/p>\n
Cline\u2019s bill would amend the United States bankruptcy code to prevent DNA information and other genetic data from being sold by companies during bankruptcy proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very narrow example that we\u2019re looking at here with 23andMe, but it could be the beginning of an effort to make sure that all Americans have their data protected and are in control of that data and how and when it\u2019s sold,\u201d said Cline.<\/p>\n
The bill would not prevent companies from selling DNA information as long as they have permission from the person.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, 23andMe is asking for people to grant them the ability to sell their data. We don\u2019t want to take away from Americans the right or ability to sell their personal information. This would really only apply to those circumstances where an unknowing or an unwilling citizen has that data sold by a company going into bankruptcy,\u201d said Cline.<\/p>\n
Cline said protecting people\u2019s genetic data is very important. A major concern when 23andMe first went bankrupt was the possibility that data would be sold to insurance companies, which could impact people\u2019s coverage rates and whether their claims are denied.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s your ethnic background. It could be related to what kinds of illnesses or diseases, or what kind of allergies you may have. It\u2019s very sensitive information, very personal information, so it\u2019s important to make sure that\u2019s protected adequately in our federal code,\u201d said Cline.<\/p>\n
As more biotech startups continue to pop up in our hometowns and around the country, Cline said it is important to have guardrails around the sale of genetic data.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause many of the big guys haven\u2019t declared bankruptcy, this hasn\u2019t been a big problem for those companies, but for smaller startups that are in this market, you do see that buying and selling, or that ability, is under question. They want to preserve that ability, but we want to make sure the citizens have control, not the company,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cline\u2019s bill is currently in the judiciary committee. Congress is on recess until after Labor Day, but when it resumes, Cline hopes to get the bill to a vote in both houses in September.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s confident it will pass quickly with bipartisan support, and he hopes to have it on the president\u2019s desk before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WDBJ. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – Virginia 6th District Congressman Ben Cline (R) has cosponsored a bipartisan bill aimed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[15068,1129,15067,4402,15069,5611,551,8910,916,2811,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-23805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-23andme","9":"tag-bankruptcy","10":"tag-ben-cline","11":"tag-biotech","12":"tag-bipartisan","13":"tag-congress","14":"tag-dna","15":"tag-genetic-data","16":"tag-genetics","17":"tag-privacy","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}