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Genetic Discrimination in the IT Workplace
MisterTut writes "In what could be a troubling trend, one employer- the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway -was found to have secretly run unproven genetic tests on workers suffering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The company was trying to prove that they were not culpable for cases of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from which the employees were suffering.
The ethical considerations of such testing, covert and illicit or not, are profound for those of us working in the IT industry."
Depending on what's needed to avoid problems, it might be cheaper to do the testing and provide the safer environment for those who need it. The testing is a one-time expense, and any different equipment is a capital expenditure; medical benefits for carpal can last for months, or even years. I have a friend who's been unable to work for over ten years now because she made the mistake of "working through the pain" of carpal, and will never be able to work for the rest of her life. Her last employer will be paying for that as long as she lives. I'm not faulting them, she could have complained about the pain sooner but chose not to. If she has a genetic predisposition and it were known, this would probably have been avoided because they wouldn't have given her the tasks (copying large numbers of pages of various files in a legal firm) that caused this.
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As an older worker, I have a pre-existing condition, multiple sclerosis.
:-)
My mobility is affected and I certainly can't dance anymore. (The cane was getting to be a hazard to the others on the dance floor. I know because I danced at a XMas party a couple or jobs ago.
Trouble is that I am probably working on the last job I will ever be able to get. I'm not that old, 50, so what am I supposed to do what that job 'goes away' as all consulting tech jobs that I ever worked on over the past 25 years have done.
I'm too handicapped and I may be too old for retraining, despite the Associate's in Business that I am currently getting (at week's end thank you.)
I am just getting tossed out. Its nothing personal but that's just the way it goes. The software I was working on (a CRM system written in Smalltalk,) has been end-of-lifed.
What am I supposed to do for money? I don't want a free ride but odds are that, if I wouldn't hire someone disabled like me, nobody else will either.
I'm not dead yet, but some days, I sort of get the feeling that everybody else wishes that I was. so they wouldn't have to be bothered.
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I would suggest taking alternative methods of healing very carefully. A friend of mine tried some alternative methods of dealing with his bi-polar disorder. He was on drugs that were kinda-sorta doing the job. They kept him stable and relatively happy, but they had some unpleasant side effects, namely weight gain and very bad acne. So, he decided to try an alternative method of dealing with it. He saw a glowing article on a certain vitamin therapy, started taking massive quantities of vitamins, dropped off his drugs, and eventually tried to kill himself.
The problem with 'alternative' medicines is that too few of the alternatives have been properly studied, they have been debunked, were studied by biased groups, or were studied using poor methods. Conventional medicine, while rarely offering up magic bullets, does a pretty good job telling you the sort of odds you are walking into. Alternative medicines on the other hand tend to be like setting off through a mine field. You might get something really that works, but you also might get some new age hippie bullshit.
So, if you have exhausted what conventional medicine has to offer, it isn't bad to branch out and explore a little. That said, I would be damn weary about dropping off drugs. The drugs might not be improving things, but they might be slowing down the progression of your illness or holding it steady. Further, you can try some alternatives without dropping off your drugs. There isn't a reason in the world why you have to drop off your drugs while you are trying acupuncture, meditation, or an improved diet.