PROVISION OF FAMILY REFERENCE SAMPLES FOR MITOCHONDRIAL ANALYSIS
If you are Going to be Involved - Get the Facts. It would be highly desirable if anybody who is going to buy into this issue, particularly anybody involved with the families or with making decisions, has the necessary background understanding, based on the relevant facts as opposed to folk lore, hearsay and preconceived emotive opinions, so that the best outcomes can be achieved all around.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAGE IS TO ASSIST IN PROVIDING BACKGROUND REGARDING TO THIS ISSUE.
The Families and Their Rights. Let me make it quite clear from the outset, I am interested in the minimisation or preferably the avoidance of any disruption to the families of the six men who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. I do, however, believe that it is appropriate for at least some of them to be approached at this stage by the authorities, and that the families decide whether or not to provide Family Reference Samples (FRS) to assist with the identification of remains from Vietnam, which are in the custody of the US Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii. (As you have possibly read elsewhere, the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA) and the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI) were merger to form JPAC on 1 October 2003.)
This is a free country and these families should be given the right to make their own decision, as the Minister has decided, and not be subjected to some form of paternalistic control where the government, their "minders," friends or associates make the decision for them - as has been the situation for many years, regarding the issue of subscribing FRS.
Summary. For those not directly involved, here is a summary of what appears in the paragraphs below, to give you a general understanding of this issue. For those who may be directly involved, I trust that you will take time to read the detail in the linked pages.
1. Purpose Behind U.S. Agencies Requesting FRS. The primary purpose of requesting FRS is for exclusionary analysis, that is to exclude the possibility that Australian remains are being held in Hawaii (See here.)
2. No Assertion that there are Australian Remains are Held in Hawaii. There is no assertion by anybody that there are Australian remains being held in Hawaii - but the possibility needs to be excluded as far as can be done with mtDNA analysis - in order to facilitate the overall identification process and perhaps offer an opportunity for the families to achieve a (small) degree of closure. (See here.)
3. MtDNA is an Aid to Identification Only. MtDNA is not unique to a given individual and does not give a positive identification. (See here.)
4. Estimate of Probability of Individual Remains Being Held. It is not possible to estimate the probability of the remains of a given individual being in Hawaii using raw arithmetic, mainly because of a lack of contextual evidence associated with the recovery of the remains. (See here.)
5. Provision of FRS will benefit the overall identification process (see here) and could also indirectly benefit other families. (See here.)
6. Time Frame. Because of the process used by the US agencies in their case work, considerable time may elapse before a decision is made to exclude the possibility that remains of a given individual are in Hawaii, as far as can be done with mtDNA analysis and other available evidence. Furthermore, considerations may be protracted since FRS may be referenced at a later date as further remains are recovered from Vietnam, and this can be expected to be the case for some years to come. (See here.)
7. Just a Pin Prick. The method used for the collection of FRS by the U.S. agencies is quite simple. Open the kit supplied. Prick your finger with the sterile, easy to use device from the kit so as to be able to milk a drop or two of your blood onto a piece of sterile blotting paper which is also in the kit. Place it paper in a plastic envellope provided with the kit, seal the envellope and the job is done.
Well that's it folks. I hope that this goes part of the way to providing a background to this issue. I am quite pleased to see that we are catching up with the technology of the 20th - yes the 20th - Century. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which has enabled this technology, was conceived in the mid 1980's if my memory serves me correctly.