History
In the late 1990s deCODE proposed to create the world's first population-wide genomic biobank by collecting data from the entire population of Iceland, which numbered 270,000 at the time. The plan had these three major components: creating a genealogical database, collecting biobank specimens by means of which genotyping could be done, and creating a national electronic health record system to connect genetic data to each individual's phenotype.
In December 1998 with lobbying from deCODE, the Icelandic Parliament passed the Act on Health Sector Database which permitted public bidding for the right of a company to create this health database and use it for various purposes. The parliament shortly thereafter granted deCODE the right to create this database after the company made a successful bid to do so.
Read more about this topic: DeCODE Genetics
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)