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Published online 4 September 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1083
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Researchers criticize genetic data restrictions
Fears over privacy breaches are premature and will impede research, experts say.
As fears over privacy prompt genetic databases in the United States and Britain to close public access to some of their data, scientists working in the field are complaining that the moves are premature and will impede research.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Wellcome Trust in London all decided to restrict access to data from genome-wide association (GWA) studies — which contain collections of thousands of people's DNA — after research suggested that it is possible to identify an individual from their genetic fingerprint even when their DNA is mixed together with that of many other people.
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