(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley will chair a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday to study the privacy and potential national security issues surrounding the bankruptcy of “23andMe.” Many thousands of Iowans are among the 15-million customers of the genetic testing company which filed Chapter 11 in March. Iowa is -not- among the two dozen-plus states that filed suit Monday to block the sale of personal genetic information in the company’s massive database.

Grassley says it remains unclear what Iowa customers of 23andMe should do. “I suppose some of these points will come out in our hearing, but I can definitely speak to one point that concerns us and for the hearing,” he says, “and that deals with the privacy of individuals and what can happen if their individual DNA gets out.”

There is fear that if the testing revealed a person’s genetic health issues, they could face higher health insurance premiums, or even be rejected for coverage. “That’s very much a possibility, but the whole purpose of this hearing is because we don’t know the dangers that are out there,” Grassley says, “but we think that the privacy of people ought to be standard and it shouldn’t come out in the bankruptcy proceedings.”

Grassley says he’s cosponsoring the Don’t Sell My DNA Act that would protect people’s genetic information. The Senate hearing in Washington is scheduled for 9:15 AM/Central on Wednesday. When 23andMe went public in 2021, its market value rocketed to nearly $6-billion. In the first nine months of this fiscal year, the company reported losses of $174-million.

A University of Iowa legal scholar, and an expert on genetic privacy, says Iowans who used 23andMe should consider deleting all of their data and profiles.