In December of 1998, after much heated debate, the parliament of Iceland passed a bill that allowed for the creation of a centralized database of all the Icelandic peoples' genealogical, genetic, and personal medical information. The parliament then granted an exclusive contract to deCODE genetics, a biomedical company, giving deCODE access to the national health records. About a year prior to the bill, deCODE signed an agreement with Hoffman-LaRoche, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, in anticipation of the contract. To research these diseases, deCODE began working with the voluntarily donated DNA of small groups of Icelanders. Later, the company launched a media campaign to attract DNA donors on a larger scale.
Family histories are part of the database.
These actions allow deCODE to combine genetic information with the genealogical and health records of each Icelander in order to create a comprehensive database. With so much personal information available to a private enterprise, scientists and policy makers are watching the endeavor closely to see how the ethical, legal, and business aspects are resolved. Most Icelanders can trace their ancestry back 1200 years. Homogeneity is a big plus in studying genetic disorders of populations. Iceland's population is relatively small - about 275,000 people.