The AAMC submitted comments on Nov. 29 to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the agency’s proposed rule restricting transfer of Americans’ sensitive personal data, including human genomic data, to six specific countries of concern. The rulemaking process at the DOJ was initiated in response to national security concerns outlined in White House Executive Order 14117, issued Feb. 28.
While recognizing the need to safeguard identifiable information, the AAMC expressed concerns about potential deleterious effects of this rule on scientific research and international collaboration as well as the difficulty that academic institutions would have implementing the restrictions as drafted. The association urged the DOJ to recognize that, in the context of biomedical research, the scope of the rule exceeded what was needed to address the stated national security concerns, asserting that “the sweeping prohibitions on biomedical research and the extraordinary cost to academic institutions of ensuring compliance with the rule as drafted will have an immediate and significantly negative impact on the United States’ engagement in international research, even in institutions that do not conduct or propose any prohibited or restricted transactions with covered persons.”
AAMC previously submitted comments (PDF) to the DOJ on an advance notice for this rule, raising many of the same concerns [refer to Washington Highlights, April 26].