An Austin lawyer is threatening a new federal lawsuit after learning that the Texas health department sent newborn blood samples to the U.S. military in 2003 and 2007 for potential use in a national database. Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, says the state never revealed that 800 samples were sent to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, the American-Statesman reports. "I can't tell you how many times we sat there, and they said no law enforcement," Harrington said. Harrington settled a separate lawsuit with the state in December regarding the storage of newborn DNA without parental consent.
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