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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-22
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THE WEEK, Page 35HEALTH & SCIENCEDNA Dog Tag or Genetic ID?
The Army's new identification program sends a big-brotherly
chill
Metal dog tags bearing a soldier's name, rank and serial
number for identification date to the early part of the century,
when battles were still being fought with bullets and bayonets.
But combatants in today's wars are not just killed, they are
sometimes obliterated, dog tags and all. So last week the Army
began collecting blood and tissue samples from new recruits,
part of an ambitious "genetic dog tag" program that will
eventually enable pathologists to identify the smallest tissue
specimens by cross-matching to genetic samples stored on file.
The Pentagon aims to collect specimens from all 2 million active
service members by the year 2000.
The Army says the need for such a system was brought home
by the gulf war, which presented a number of dicey
identification problems. In one case, a pound of tissue turned
over by the Iraqis had to be matched against beard shavings
taken from a missing soldier's electric razor. But civil
libertarians fear that this might be the precursor to a national
DNA screening program. The Army insists that the samples will
not be tested for AIDS, drug use or anything else. In the event
of a subpoena issued as part of a criminal investigation,
however, the Army would be forced to comply.