UK Drops DNA Tests For Refugees And Asylum Seekers
By NPR,
National Public Radio
| 06. 17. 2011
Britain has dropped a policy of using DNA tests to identify the nationality of African refugees and asylum seekers after criticism that there is no scientific merit to the practice.
The government "does not plan to take forward DNA or isotope testing for country of origin identification purposes," and has also suspended an internal review of the program, according to a statement issued Friday by the U.K. Border Agency. It did not explain why it was discontinuing the program.
The pilot project first began in 2009 and was heavily slammed by experts, who said it was not possible to pinpoint a person's nationality based on their genes. British authorities described the testing as voluntary, and some applicants were asked to provide a mouth swab or hair or nail sample in cases where there were questions about their nationality.
The government said such tests provided valuable evidence in assessing whether asylum seekers are telling the truth about their country of origin. The tests were used only on people who claimed to be from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan.
Refugees...
Related Articles
By Jonathan Basile, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 04.29.2026
WILLIAM BATESON, a foundational figure in the science of genetics at the turn of the last century, once recounted the response of a Scottish soldier to one of his public lectures: “Sir, what ye’re telling us is nothing but Scientific...
By Abby Vesoulis, Mother Jones | 04.18.2026
Two years ago, we devoted an entire issue to the rise of the American oligarchy. Since then, our oligarchic system has become more entrenched and pervasive, revolving around a small crew of tech titans whose quest for wealth and...
By Alex Aylward, Daniel J. Fairbanks, Maria Kiladi, and Gregory Radick , Heredity | 04.20.2026
Genetics and eugenics co-evolved at the beginning of the twentieth century and remained associated through the 1940s and beyond. Early geneticists were far from unanimous in their views on eugenics; some avidly supported the movement, whereas others openly opposed it...
By John Donvan, WNYC and Open to Debate [with Marcy Darnovsky] | 04.23.2026
For complete introduction see Substack
Some call it eugenics, an unsettling step toward a world of “designer babies” reserved for the privileged. Others see something very different: a transformative scientific advance with the potential to prevent devastating genetic diseases before...
