A question of public safety vs. privacy

By Rick Callahan Associated Press writer

Posted May 18, 2016 2:41 PM

Two-day-old Ellie Bailey squirms in a hospital bassinet and cries as her tiny left heel is squeezed and then pricked with a needle to draw a blood sample. An Indianapolis hospital technician quickly saturates six circles on a special filter card with the child’s blood.Ellie is among some 4 million newborns in the United States who will have blood drawn this year to screen them for serious inherited diseases such as sickle cell anemia, which can cause organ damage, and the metabolic disease phenylketonuria, or PKU …

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