A mass grave in eastern BosniaWIKIMEDIA, POLARGEOWhen the remains of victims of political conflict or natural disasters are so badly damaged that they cannot be identified visually, DNA can often help. With modern genetics technologies, a small bit of tissue may be all that’s needed to determine who’s who. Unfortunately, in many areas of the world facing violent times, such as the current war zone that is Syria, the government and its citizens may not be able to afford such forensic technologies.
According to medical ethicist Alex John London of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Ethics and Policy, Lisa Parker of the Center for Bioethics and Health Law at the University of Pittsburgh, and Jay Aronson of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Human Rights Science, this inequality in access to DNA science should stop. “In the context of poverty and deprivation, forensic identification might appear to be a luxury,” the trio wrote in a policy forum in Science last week (September 13). “But access to scientific identification of the missing and the dead after mass casualty events can be a starting point for healing, reconstruction, and the ability to access financial resources or to regain or maintain social status.”
Such large-scale efforts are becoming more and more common; ...
