Genetic Testing Bill - The Law is Now on Our Side
The GINA -- the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act -- was signed into law by President Bush yesterday. Among all the bad news about gas prices, food prices, the economy in general, and the fatigue of this presidential election -- at least GINA is good news!
I brought your attention to this bill several weeks ago. It's a very positive step for protecting us from the potential negatives that the positives of science have begun to bring us.
The fear was this: now that medical sciences has developed the ability to determine what affect our individual genetic code might have on our health -- what predetermined health problems we may inherit from our ancestors -- that health insurers for one, and employers for another, might use that information against us. Explained another way: if we ever chose to have our genes reviewed for potential problems, and it was discovered that we might someday become debilitated in some way, that a health insurer might deny us coverage or an employer might fire us, or never hire us to begin with.
Now -- by law -- that can't happen. At least health insurers can't do it today, and employers can't do it beginning in about 18 months. And there are multi-hundreds of thousands of dollar fines if they try. The concept is based on any other form of discrimination that is illegal. Your genetic code, similar to your race or gender, cannot be discriminated against.
There is a good explanation of exactly what rights we do and don't have through the GINA, provided by the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins.
The bottom line for us patients? Where genetic testing can reveal problems we might have in the future, that might be prevented if we alter our lifestyles, we can go ahead and get that testing done, without fear of a negative backlash down the road. It's all good.
Ironically, while signing the GINA into law, President Bush gave credit to Senator Ted Kennedy for shepherding the bills through Congress. One has to wonder whether genetic testing and personalized medicine might have helped him prevent his brain tumor had the science been available in time.
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Comments
Please correct me if I have misunderstood. But if all of this depends on genetics how can an insurance carrier or an employer know that a person’s disease is genetic, and not the direct result of the employee’s or insurance applicant’s dangerous behaviors/habits: smoking, illicit drug use, abuse of alcohol, and such. If someone is tested but has no living parents or grand parents, how can an insurance carrier or employer know? Or does this make a difference? And if it does,the courts will be jam-packed. For if someone claims to have been denied without legitimate reason they will surely file suit.