The employment provisions of GINA will become effective November 2009. The new law will prohibit an employer from discriminating against an individual in the hiring, firing, compensation, terms, or privileges of employment on the basis of genetic information. This new law has been called “the first civil rights law of the 21st century”.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm. Please comment or trackback.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:18 pm
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.