Today President Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. This law will prohibit insurance companies and employees from discriminating against people based on their genetic information.
Women can get tested for mutations in their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to see if they are at risk for breast or ovarian cancer. The test results will help them to make informed medical decisions and their employers and insurance carrier can not discriminate against them because of positive results. The BRCA 1&2 genes are responsible for 5-10 % of all ovarian cancers.
LiveStrong
Dee
1 comment:
These regulations are a good idea, but there still seems to be some holes in the new laws. For instance, health information is not the only thing you can get from your DNA:
http://dnatestingguides.com/2008/05/what-is-dna-testing/
For example with the wholesale collection of DNA the government, or any company that so wished, could compile a DNA fingerprint database or trace your ancestry.
It's not clear how the new regulations would apply to this. Perhaps the best way to stop companies/governments abusing genetic information, is to not only protect the information, but not let them have it in the first place.
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