E. The extensive record keeping, Iceland's isolated geography, and minimal migration from other countries, have enabled Iceland to boast the purest bloodlines of any first world country. Gary Taubes explains, "There are advantages in having this data when studying DNA, along with advances in biotech and computing, you could simply take a few hundred or a thousand victims of disease, analyze their DNA, compare it to the healthy individuals and identify the salient differences.".
There has been a coordinated effort to challenge the constitutionality of this bill. Elinar Arnason is a population geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Iceland. Arnason states, "The bill was sprung on the Icelandic community, as lightning from the clear sky, the speed of the passing of this bill has left many questions unanswered." How does such a potential bonanza get divided among all participants, if at all? Will deCODE provide free medication to all Icelanders? Considering the database is an extensive compilation of every Icelandic citizen, the pie could get cut very thin. .
As sole licensee, deCODE has a monopoly on the data. The database belongs to the national health system managed by the government but deCODE has the right to commercialize the data for 12 years. Oksana Hlodan states, "The most incredulous provision of the legislation even ensures deCODE that access to the data cannot be granted to other parties if it harms the financial interests of the company." DeCODE plans to market its information for a fee, including pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. Hlodan gives an example, "The arrangement with Hoffman-LaRoche for 12 diseases netted the company millions of dollars, and effectively blocks anyone else from studying these diseases in Iceland.".
Free medication for specific conditions has been promised to Icelanders. However Hlodan argues, "The gesture comes with a stipulation, deCODE and its business partners must first acknowledge that the medications were a result from the original database, and not from new information collected.