Genetic testing is becoming a cornerstone of modern medicine, used to measure the likelihood of developing diseases from cancer to mental illness.
But as health-care providers move quickly to use the information, employers increasingly are running up against the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. GINA bars companies from asking about family medical history or genetic testing or using such information to hire, fire or promote employees.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently filed its first two lawsuits under GINA against companies that it says improperly collected genetic information.
Read the full article here: Should Bosses Have Access to Workers’ Genetic-Test Results?
Additional Resources:
- The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
The full text of the act, signed into law in 2008. - Genetic Discrimination, National Human Genome Research Institute
Find interactive guides, FAQs, and more information about GINA on this website from NIH. - “The Burden of Enforcing GINA: EEOC v. Nestle Illustrates One Challenge in Pursuing Genetic Discrimination Claims,” Genomics Law Report
Jennifer K Wagner and Dan Vorhaus provide a deeper analysis of one of the cases mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article, including diving into the difficulty of providing direct evidence of genetically-based discrimination. - Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act Charges, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The total number of charges filed and resolved under Genetic Information Non-Discrimination is still only a small portion of the charges filed with the EEOC, but if the Wall Street Journal article is right, that may soon change.
