Senate passes legislation to protect patients from genetic discrimination
Patients who learn through genetic tests that they might be prone to devastating infections won’t have to fret about losing their jobs — or their health care coverage — under anti-discrimination legislation the U.S. Senate passed earlier today, according to news media reports.
The 95-0 Senate vote sends the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) to the House of Representatives, which may approve it early week. President Bush supports the bill.
Described by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) as “the first major new civil rights bill of the new century,” the bill bars health insurance companies from using genetic information to set premiums or determine enrollment eligibility for patients.
“For the first time we act to prevent discrimination before it has taken firm hold and that’s why this legislation is unique and groundbreaking,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) who sponsored the bill.
There are more than 1,100 genetic tests available today, and testing leads to early interventions for an array of diseases with hereditary links, including breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and Parkinson’s disease. There is speculation that some forms of cancer, and even Parkinson’s disease, may be linked to infectious agents in the medical community.
Congressional efforts to set federal standards to protect people from genetic discrimination go back more than a decade, to a time when there were only a small number of genetic tests.
Bill sponsors said that improving technology for screening has increased the likelihood that a prospective health insurance company or employer will reject a person because of concerns that person will suffer a costly disease in the future.
Dr. Francis Collins, genetics chief at the National Institutes of Health, said it’s hard to know how often genetic discrimination has occurred in the U.S., as victims are reluctant to come forward.
One example — a Texas-based railroad that once conducted genetic tests on workers complaining of carpal tunnel syndrome in an effort to argue the injuries weren’t job related if patients had a genetic predisposition.
“All of us carry glitches in our DNA and we’re learning more and more about those every day,” he said. “A system that allows that information to be used to deny people health care or a job is a system that has lost its way. This is a civil rights issue and it’s high time we took care of it.”
– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director
Genetic testing soon to be circumscribed by law. Image Courtesy of Gendia.
Posted: April 24th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity, Parkinson's.
Comments: 1