Bill Clark of the Columbia Daily Tribune writes about how Major League Baseball is entering the realm of DNA testing especially in Latin America.
In an attempt to eliminate cheating on age and identities in Latin America, particularly in the Dominican Republic, MLB has admitted to genetic testing to determine the true identity of players being signed, particularly those receiving big bonuses.
In addition to establishing the identity of players, it is possible to also provide clues to their age.
Federal legislation that was passed last year, will prohibit companies from testing employees (or a family member) on the basis of their DNA. This law will take effect on November 21 of this year. It is unclear how this U.S. law will affect American companies implementing these procedures in other countries.
Here is the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 in its entirety.
According to the New York Times, MLB has declined how many players have been tested and whether or not the test results were kept or destroyed. Given the situation with the recent controversy with the 2003 steroid list that was under law supposed to be kept under wraps, you can see where that can lead us.
The whole thing stinks to me. Major League Baseball has no business doing this. If they can find out what they need to know the old fashioned way by forging relationships and establishing communications, then they need to do their homework. DNA testing and the like is one more thing that will set their work down there backwards.