In a recent essay published by Harvard Law School’s Bill of Health, Pace Haub Law Professor Lauren Breslow and co-author Vanessa Smith call for stronger ethical and legal safeguards to protect genomic data from misuse, particularly when children and vulnerable communities contribute DNA for research purposes. The authors highlight recent reporting that pediatric DNA data shared for adolescent brain development research was later exploited to support racist “race science” claims, underscoring how systems built for public-health advancement can be co-opted for harmful and stigmatizing ends. Drawing on the Belmont Report’s core principles of respect, beneficence, and justice — as well as past research transgressions like the Havasupai Tribe case — they argue that genomic research must be governed with heightened oversight and an assumption that bad actors will seek to exploit shared data repositories. “Precisely because so much genetic data is now collected, stored, and shared, the Times account raises the specter of a broader ethical vulnerability in genomic science: data systems built for beneficial research can be exploited for purposes to which volunteers who contributed their DNA did not agree,” write Breslow and Smith.