Congresses Pushes Anti-Genetic Discrimination to President Bush

Thursday saw President Bush receiving a bill from Congress directed at stopping insurance companies and businesses from using genetic tests as the basis of refusing jobs, health care benefits and also promotions to employees as well as prospective employees.

Under the new legislation, these companies would no longer be able to use genetic tests for determining pre-existing medical conditions, such as cancer, heart ailments, or other illnesses to discriminate against employees, both current and prospective. Indications are President Bush will soon sign in the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Lawmakers are already hailing the yet to be signed Act as the first major step to stop genetic discrimination, the first big civil rights act of the current century. This act would complement the already existing law against discrimination on the basis of race and gender.

As the head of the National Human Genome Research Institute, Francis Collins, put it, the bill received the support of researchers as many Americans are already refusing to undergo genetic testing as they did not want their employer using this information against them.

Collins said many of those that took the tests resorted to various ways of avoiding detection, such as using false names and paying cash for the tests. He said, “Your skin color, your gender, all of those are part of your DNA. Shouldn't the rest of your DNA also fall under that protective umbrella?”

Once the new law comes into effect, insurance companies would no longer be able to use genetic information of clients and prospective clients to determine their insurance premiums or even eligibility for insurance. It would also ensure employers did not use their employees’ genetic information to determine their work-related issues such as promotions or retirement.

That the government has finally come up with the proposal for the new law is significant. A study conducted in 2001 showed a large number of major American companies, nearly two-thirds of them, in fact, asked new employees to undergo genetic tests, for a variety of reasons.

The study showed 14% of the organizations asked their new employees to take the tests to check if they were likely to fall prey to any workplace hazards, while another 3% required their new employees to undergo tests to determine susceptibility to cancer of the breast and colon.

Another 1% of the organizations asked for the tests to determine susceptibility to sickle cell anemia, while 20% of them gathered data relating to the employees’ family medical history.

The story goes even further back, right to the 1970s. In those times, a number of companies refused to cover African Americans who were susceptible to sickle cell anemia as they carried the gene for the condition. Studies have revealed that workers at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were tested for genetic conditions, including sickle cell anemia, right from the 1960s to 1993.

The employees at the Laboratory were, however, told the tests were in fact for a routine screening for cholesterol. This is not an isolated incident, either. 36 employees of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. received payment to the tune of $2.2 million as settlement for a lawsuit they had filed against the company.

The legislation was cleared in the House with a 414-1 vote Thursday, with only Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, voting against it. Earlier, a week ago, the Senate had given its clearance to the legislation through a 95-0 vote.

Speaking about why he voted against the legislation, Paul said, “Because of the federal government’s poor record in protecting privacy, I do not believe the best way to address concerns about the misuse of genetic information is through intrusive federal legislation.”

Speaking about the proposed legislation, Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat senator from Massachusetts, said the new legislation would ensure no American would be refused access to healthcare or a job because of the results obtained through the test.