The Norwegian Consumer Council is now warning pregnant women as there is an increasing number of pregnant Norwegian women taking a noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) in Denmark.
One of the tests is analyzed in China and both mother and fetal DNA might be accessed by the Chinese government.
“If the Chinese authorities really want to, they will get access to the genetic data. This is the general relationship between Chinese companies and the state. You cannot know what happens to your own and the unborn child’s DNA,” Mette Halskov Hansen, professor in Chinese Studies at the University of Oslo, tells the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board’s journal.
In Norway, genetic testing types are more limited than Denmark and Sweden.
The possibility of Chinese authorities’ access to Norwegian DNA comes from the fact that one of the NIPT tests which are broadly used in Denmark and Sweden, “Nifty”, has been developed and analyzed by the Chinese company BGI.
BGI writes that Chinese authorities are given access to genetic data if national security considerations dictate.
