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This example makes no sense to me:

Had he not been tested he would have been severely brain damaged, possibly would have had heart and kidney problems. If blood spots hadn’t been saved, they wouldn’t have been able to make the test that saved my child’s life.

They used these blood spots to develop the test? How would they do that? Sure they have a blood/DNA sample, but they don't know what the patient's state of health is. How do they connect it? And if they needed to check the patient's health they could just take a blood sample.

I think the newborn screening program is very valuable. However, I'm not sure if they've adequately explained why they need to keep these blood samples forever.



When a problem arises, in some cases the samples from that individual can be pulled and tested. What generally happens is:

>Patients with identified issue come in. Blood spots pulled.

>Healthy individuals serving as controls sign-up. Blood spots pulled.

>Both sets are tested (double-blind, anonymized health status) and hopefully something is found.


But if a patient goes to their doctor with a problem, why not just get a blood sample then. Why send a request to some storage facility to pull a blood samples from years ago?


I think what's meant is they need the heel prick today to do the test, but they need a large sample of control subjects to make the test.




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