Friday, February 22, 2019

The Metamorphosis of the Arizona Rapid DNA Bill

Having swum through a Senate committee hearing, Arizona Senate Bill 1475 changed from an ungainly, large frog into a small, misconfigured tadpole. I know, that's backwards, but the legislative process is a world onto itself. Some of the differences between the original bill and the repeatedly amended version now on the legislature's website are in the table below. 1/

Original As Amended to 2/22/19
A new DPS database for everybody required to submit fingerprints to the state for most purposes Does not compel anyone to submit DNA samples. It establishes a new DPS for profiles from sexual assault kits.
Medical examiners to submit a DNA profile from all deceased individuals No provision specific to medical examiners
No provisions on crime-scene or sexual-assault kits A new DPS "database to retain DNA ID that is collected from a sexual assault kit"
Required "the sample to be processed within four hours using Rapid DNA identification" Requires "the sample to be processed using a Rapid DNA identification instrument that is approved by the [FBI] and that has the capacity to return results in less than two hours"

Given that police laboratories already analyze rape kits and place the male STR profiles in databases that are compared to databases of reference profiles from known individuals (in Arizona, from certain arrestees and convicted offenders), what is the point of this bill? Why create a new database when Arizona has local and statewide DNA identification databases that include data from rape kits already and that can be used in national as well as state and local searches?

The answers reside in the bill's single-minded insistence on "rapid DNA." ANDE, the company that has come out in support of the bill, advertises its microfluidic system for use with rape kits. But despite the wording in the bill, the FBI has not approved this application of the company's machine (or any others that it defines as "rapid DNA" instruments).

ANDE's machine may be as great as the company claims, even  when used with crime-scene and rape-kit samples. 2/ But until the FBI approves it for those uses, the profiles it generates from these samples cannot be part of the local, state, and federal DNA database system (colloquially called CODIS). If Arizona wants its police to rush into rapid DNA profiling for rape kits, it has to operate on its own, outside of the established framework. That is what Senator Livingston is proposing. 3/

Or is he? If FBI approval means approval for use with sexual-assault kits, the bill will have no effect until the FBI moves forward. But once the FBI approves "Rapid DNA" profiles from crime-scene samples, what purpose does a separate database serve?
From the FBI's Webpage on Rapid DNA
(emphasis in original)

Because known reference samples are taken directly from the individual, they contain sufficient amounts of DNA, and there are no mixed DNA profiles that would require a scientist to interpret them. For purposes of uploading or searching CODIS, Rapid DNA systems are not authorized for use on crime scene samples. All crime scene samples must be processed by an accredited forensic DNA laboratory that follows the FBI Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories to be eligible for upload and/or search in CODIS.
...
Cheek swabs are ideal for Rapid DNA machines, as they contain large amounts of fresh DNA from one individual. Forensic samples vary widely, from the age, exposure and nature of the sample to the amount and quality of DNA it may contain. Most critically, forensic samples often contain mixtures of DNA from more than one individual that requires interpretation by a trained scientist. For these reasons, all crime scene samples must be processed by an accredited forensic DNA Laboratory that follows the FBI Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories to be uploaded and/or searched in the CODIS system.
There are many challenges that must be overcome before the FBI can consider the use of Rapid DNA systems for crime scene sample analysis. The Bureau continues to assess how these challenges can be addressed to include monitoring enhancements to Rapid DNA technology. Among the major challenges is the requirement to determine the amount of DNA present in a sample (necessary to maximize the resulting quality of the DNA profile, assess for contamination, etc.) and the development of expert systems for crime scene sample analysis. 
Will police or DNA analysts have discretion to choose between the instrumentation singled out in the bill and other techniques? What if the rape-kit sample contains only a few spermatozoa and if other analytical procedures are more sensitive and would consume less of the sample? The latest version of the bill is less ambitious than the original, but no more intelligently designed.

UPDATE 6/20/19: An AP report on friction between ANDE and the Texas Forensic Science Commission 4/ noted that ANDE spokeswoman Annette Mattern "defended the company asking for 'performance parameters' in the proposed DNA database bill that excluded the company's chief rival, Thermo Fischer Scientific, saying it wouldn't have prevented competitors from ultimately meeting the same requirements." Although "Mattern and other ANDE representatives testified in support of the proposal," she said that the company "later asked to kill the legislation"  after "[s]ome senators questioned whether there were other advocates besides the company."

NOTES
  1. For a more complete list of differences, see https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/54leg/1R/summary/S.1475TPS_STRIKERMEMO_ASPASSEDCOMMITTEE.DOCX.htm
  2. For validation studies of microfluidic systems for rapid DNA analysis, see Jacklyn Buscaino et al., Evaluation of a Rapid DNA Process with the Rapidhit® ID System Using a Specialized Cartridge for Extracted and Quantified Human DNA, 34 Forensic Sci. Int’l: Genetics 116-127 (2018); Rosemary S. Turingan et al., 7 Investigative Genetics 2 (2016), DOI 10.1186/s13323-016-0033-7.
    At least one article (Aamer Alshehhi & Reena Roy, Generating Rapid DNA Profiles from Crime Scene Samples Commonly Encountered in the United Arab Emirates, 6 J. Forensic Research 296 (2015), doi:10.4172/2157-7145.1000296), appeared in a journal published by OMICS, which promises article processing, including peer review, within 21 days. Although reputable academic researchers prepared the article and presumably paid OMICS to publish it, the claim of serious peer review -- and even the names of the editors -- are questionable. OMICS also published an article prepared by a daily newspaper "mostly plagiarized from Aristotle, with every fourth or fifth word changed" to produce a "meaningless" result.Tim Spears, Owner of Canadian Medical Journals Publishes Fake Research for Cash, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 22, 2016. The National Institutes of Health ... banned OMICS journals from indexing in PubMed Central [because of] 'serious concerns' about its practices." Esmé E Deprez & Caroline Chen, Medical Journals Have a Fake News Problem, Bloomberg Businessweek, Aug. 29, 2017
  3. The Arizona DPS already does some crime-scene processing with rapid DNA devices. Ariz. Dep't Pub. Safety, DNA Scientific Services, https://www.azdps.gov/organization/tsd/scientific-analysis/dna ("The Department of Public Safety was the first state agency to bring Rapid DNA analysis online as a law enforcement program where officers and crime scene technicians are trained in the use of the Rapid instrumentation. These Rapid operators can then run select types of crime scene samples outside of the laboratory in order to develop investigative leads more quickly than possible through normal crime laboratory analysis.").
  4. Paul J. Weber, APNewsBreak: Texas Says DNA Technology Jeopardizes Cases, ABC News, June 20, 2019, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/apnewsbreak-texas-rapid-dna-supplier-jeopardizes-cases-63826207.
OTHER NEWS ON ARIZONA SB 1475
Posted by DH Kaye at 5:51 PM 0 comments
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Friday, February 15, 2019

Who Favors the Arizona Rapid DNA Database Expansion Bill?

Arizona Senate Bill 1475, discussed yesterday, has not been greeted with widespread joy. The West Maricopa Association of Realtors was apoplectic. Its Director of Government Affairs had this to say:
Senator Livingston, you and I would do well to read Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man”. His premise is as true today as it was 250 years ago: Man is given natural rights as part of his existence. He does not join a society or form a government in order to lose those rights.
She did not explain why the "rights of man" enjoyed by real estate agents keep the state from ascertaining and recording their "DNA IDs" but not their fingerprints.

The vociferous opposition already has produced drastic surgery to the bill. According to YourValley.net,
[An] updated draft of the bill focuses on jobs that involve caring for people with intellectual disabilities. It is restricted to those who ... provide[] direct care in an intermediate care facility for individuals with intellectual disabilities .... Messages to Sen. Livingston were not returned, however, according to chamber sources, he introduced the bill in response to Phoenix’s Hacienda Healthcare incident in which a licensed nurse practitioner impregnated a comatose patient.
But the sheer scope of the bill is not the only unusual part of it. Why, for example, does it demand samples to be processed solely by a particular type of instrument -- a self contained microfluidic capillary electrophoreses system known colloquially as "Rapid DNA"? Where did the bill's operative language and definitions of "DNA ID" and "genetic profile" come from? They are not standard terms in the forensic DNA field. But they appear on the website of a particular manufacturer of a Rapid DNA instrument. That manufacturer is ANDE, "the global leader in Rapid DNA," and the only request to speak in favor of the bill comes from "Mike Williams, ANDE(2/15/2019)."
Posted by DH Kaye at 8:30 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, February 14, 2019

Arizona Senator Proposes a Massive Expansion of the State DNA Database

This month (4 Feb. 2019), Arizona State Senator David Livingston (R) introduced SB 1475 to dramatically expand the number of DNA samples and identification profiles held by the state for searching against crime-scene DNA profiles (and other things). It is scheduled for a hearing before the Committee on Transportation and Public Safety.-- which Senator Livingston chairs -- on February 20.

Whose DNA?

The new DNA samples would come from everyone
☆ "required by law to submit fingerprints for purposes of identification as part of an application for licensure, certification or a permit or renewal of a license, certificate or permit"
☆ "whose employment or position requires fingerprinting for purposes of identification."
☆ "who is employed by or volunteering with a law enforcement agency."
☆ "who, for any other reason, is required by law to submit fingerprints for purposes of identification."
☆ who is dead ("A deceased person, whose DNA shall be collected by the medical examiner" and "A deceased person's DNA ID must be submitted to the department within twenty four hours after collection.")
☆ "ordered by a court ... to submit DNA ID for purposes of proving or disproving familial relationships" or
☆ "who voluntarily requests [inclusion] in the database."
I have not looked up who must submit fingerprints to the state, but I would expect this group to include teachers, child care center employees, law enforcement personnel, anyone jailed for any suspected offense, and the Arizona legislators themselves! Putting the legislator's DNA samples into the system would be a good idea, but it is not clear that the state can make its rank-and-file employees submit to DNA profiling. The federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2009 (GINA) generally prohibits employers from demanding "genetic information," and one district court interpreted this to include identification profiles.

What Does It Cost?

The bill allows the collecting agency to "collect a fee of up to $250 from a person who submits biological samples." It does not say how the medical examiner will collect the money from the dead. Last year, the National Institute of Justice's FTCoE (Forensic Technology Center of Excellence) reported that "[t]here are hefty costs and agencies will say ‘That sounds great but I don’t know if we can afford it,’ ” ... it costs approximately $100 to $150 to process each sample in addition to the purchase price of the instrument itself."

How to Profile to DNA

The bill requires "collecting agencies to "promptly process the sample ... within four hours using rapid DNA identification ... ."

What DNA Features?

Collecting agencies "may not test the sample for or submit any [DNA] information other than DNA ID. [S]equence or single nucleotide polymorphism are explicitly excluded from submission." The bill explains that "'DNA ID' means a human identification measurement that is based on the size of a set of short tandem repeats in the genome of an individual that is obtained from a biological sample by short tandem repeat amplification and electrophoretic sizing and that is generated from a noncoding portion of deoxyribonucleic acid that does not contain any information, other than gender, about a person's physical characteristics or medical conditions."

"The database may not be used for the storage of a deoxyribonucleic acid sequence or a single nucleotide polymorphism or to create a genetic profile." But a SNP is not what you might think. It "means a variation in deoxyribonucleic acid sequence in which a single nucleotide at a specific location in the genome varies from person to person and can be used to assess a given person's physical characteristics or medical conditions." Likewise, "[g]genetic profile' means a description of a person's genetic code that is developed through [DNA] sequencing or single nucleotide polymorphism technologies and that contains information about that person's physical characteristics or medical conditions."

What Happens to Samples?

In an unusual twist, the state must destroy "the biological sample ... immediately after testing is complete." (It can demand a second sample if the first profile is incomplete. After that, I guess it is out of luck.)

What Uses?

Permitted uses are open-ended:
"for purposes of criminal law enforcement, identification for employment, licensing, death registration, missing persons identification, identification of persons using aliases or other multiple identities or other uses specifically authorized by the department [of public safety]."
What will they think of next? If the state wants a population-wide database, it ought to authorize it through clear legislation.

For more on Ariz. SB 1475, see
Posted by DH Kaye at 9:01 PM 0 comments
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