This example makes no sense to me:<p><i>Had he not been tested he would have been severely brain damaged, possibly would have had heart and kidney problems. If blood spots hadn’t been saved, they wouldn’t have been able to make the test that saved my child’s life.</i><p>They used these blood spots to <i>develop</i> the test?  How would they do that?  Sure they have a blood&#x2F;DNA sample, but they don&#x27;t know what the patient&#x27;s state of health is.  How do they connect it?  And if they needed to check the patient&#x27;s health they could just take a blood sample.<p>I think the newborn screening program is very valuable.  However, I&#x27;m not sure if they&#x27;ve adequately explained why they need to keep these blood samples forever.