It probably should no longer surprise me when the popular press is ignorant of anonymity, but of course it still does. There were several otherwise excellent articles in the Detroit News today (http://www.detnews.com/) about DNA research and inherited diseases (specifically breast cancer). The gist of one of the stories is that there are several reasons that deter people from being tested for genetic predispositions to disease, but that one of the primary ones is the fear of losing one's health insurance. Nowhere in the article was the possibility of anonymous testing mentioned. This is a severe oversight in my opinion. Clearly, being tested for a genetic disorder would not require disclosure of one's true name, and the testing could be paid for in cash (of course providing genetic material could eventually be indexed into a database to discover that true name, but I doubt we are there yet, at least I hope not!) The implication of most articles regarding this subject are that "there ought to be a law" prohibiting disclosure by medical practioners. Of course, most of us would probably agree that the proper approach is allowing non-disclosure by those tested. I don't know whether this is currently "legal", is there a legal requirement that medical practioners have "true names" before testing? Medical testing provides a unique opportunity to acquaint the public with the benefits of anonymity. Most americans can clearly see the payoff - not having your health insurance cancelled. Other anonymous transactions have somewhat less tangible benefits for the majority of americans (sorry to be so america-centric, maybe I should change the phrasing to citizen-units ;-) That's my minor rant for a Sunday AM. Now back to my x-mas shopping! Clay ******************************************************* Clay Olbon olbon@ix.netcom.com sys-admin, engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. **********************************************tanstaafl