This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

genetics generic

A new bill introduced past Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and canonical by the House Ways and Means Committee would allow corporations to forcefulness employees to undergo genetic testing — and then share those results with third parties. In theory, this is already illegal, thanks to a 2008 law known equally GINA. This type of behavior is as well regulated by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

The new House bill, HR 1313, gets around these issues by preemptively declaring that workplace wellness programs offered in conjunction with an employer's sponsored wellness care program shall be considered to be in compliance with GINA, the ADA, and other workplace protections. Given that the relevant section of GINA (section 202(b)(2)) specifically states that information technology shall be unlawful for employers to gather genetic information on employees without the limited permission and consent of the employee in question, the GOP just wrote a privacy-shredding exception into a bill and so quietly passed that beak through committee.

Workplace health programs have been controversial because they largely don't seem to work, just remain popular as a method of pushing healthcare costs on to employees. Historically, companies take been allowed to offer these programs (and to enforce fiscal penalties on employees that refuse to meet their goals). But Hr 1313 goes farther than but assuasive genetic profiling of employees because an employer offers insurance coverage. The bill actually stipulates that any company with whatsoever plan with a workplace wellness component can mandate genetic collection whether it provides insurance or non. It also states:

[T]he collection of information about the manifested disease or disorder of a family unit fellow member shall non be considered an unlawful acquisition of genetic information with respect to another family unit member as office of a workplace wellness programme. [accent added]

Under the GOP's nib, which has already passed through one committee vote with 22 Republicans voting for information technology and 17 Democrats against, it would be explicitly legal for companies to collect genetic data on your family members. It's also legal for them to share that information with third parties, in consummate and total abrogation of the privacy protections passed in 2008.

The American Society for Human Genetics has blasted the neb:

H.R.1313 would effectively repeal these protections by allowing employers to ask employees invasive questions about their and their families' health, including genetic tests they, their spouses, and their children may accept undergone. GINA's requirement that employees' genetic information nerveless through a workplace wellness program only be shared with health care professionals would no longer apply.

60 minutes 1313 is a travesty. Information technology guts previous protections passed past Congress intended to protect the most fundamentally personal information whatsoever human possesses — their own genetic code. It would allow corporations to share that information with third parties for analysis without stripping information technology of identifying information (GINA forbids this, but 1313 supersedes GINA). It would allow companies to levy fines up to 30% of the cost of health premiums on the employees who fail to cooperate. The ASHG notes that the boilerplate premium cost for employees in 2016 was $18,142, meaning families could face an additional $5,443 in premium costs per year for refusing to paw over their genetic and wellness information.