> this act has likely saved millions of lives through early diagnosis of preventable diseases and early intervention on disabilities

Why does the state have to collect and keep the sample for that to happen? Why can't it be the private property of the parents, provided to whatever private testing labs are used to do the tests?

That seems like a fair criticism. I don't know enough to quantify the benefit of retaining these samples, but I do know that the reason for keeping samples primarily relates to quality control, research, and development of tests.

There is a process for people to have the sample destroyed, I also have no idea how easy or how often that is used.