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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."
...a company is not culpable for, say, Carpal Tunnel in a particular worker, because it ultimately is shown to have a genetic component, and the company has already taken reasonable, industry- and regulatory agency-accepted, good-faith steps to mitigate it, but can't be prevented with this type of work in this type of employee (except by taking extreme measures and/or changing the person's job completely)?
That makes a lot of assumptions, but in that event, why would/should the employer be responsible? Should an employee have to pay worker's compensation claims for events that it is not primarily responsible; i.e., events that it has already taken steps to prevent? (Sure, you can argue "Well, Person X wouldn't have gotten Carpal Tunnel at all if they weren't in that job, even if they were genetically predisposed to it", assuming that is established at some point, for the sake of argument. But is the employer always, then, responsible? Under what conditions are they not responsible?)
And further, especially for an at-will employer, why would it not want to avoid workers who won't be able to effectively perform certain tasks, or workers who statistically may become liabilities in the future? What is the source for the reasoning that everyone has a "right" to work, and to work for a particular employer, to those who believe that?
I'm most certainly not saying employers should run secret genetic tests without employee consent. I'm also not making an argument that such testing, even with consent, should necessarily become commonplace. These are larger questions.
And on another note, why is every trend always "troubling", every impact "profound"? I find it amusing that those who would, say, be fully in support of embryonic stem cell research, apparently throwing any ethical concerns to the wind, all of a sudden see "troubling" ethical implications for employers trying to use the same essential tools.
Employers aren't always bad; aren't always in the wrong. You can make assertions that they might gravitate that way, and cite examples, but that doesn't automatically mean all employers' decisions are always wrong and worthy of suspicion, and all employees' decisions and actions are always right and worthy of protection. Note again that I am NOT defending Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway's decision, or anything having to do with this specific case. I'm speaking in generalities here, and am honestly curious as to peoples' thoughts.
Sounds like Gattaca. So how much would it cost to run these "unproven genetic tests," I'd imagine it's quite expensive. Besides how much of it genetics and how much is just plain wear and tear, if I spent most of my life hunched over a keyboard typing or "playing racket ball" ... oh dammit. No genetic discrimination!
... its a brave new world??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
when they find the slashdot reading gene, we are all screwed
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
Can I get away with not working and point to my genetics? Any excuse not to work is greatly appreciated.
From TFA: Granted, this legislation is certainly important, but it sidesteps the central issue: no one should have access to my genetic code without my permission or a warrant. Period. My company can't break into my house and inspect my personal belongings...what makes it OK for them to inspect my genome? Granted, if the above mentioned legislation passes, companies will not be able to overtly discriminate based on these findings...but all this really means is that if they want to get rid of an employee because of genetic considerations, they will just have to dream up some sort of pretense to remove the offending employee.
Yes, I'm sure that if genetic testing of individuals without their consent were to be outlawed, some companies would continue doing it in secret, just as if discrimination was outlawed, some companies would circumvent the law as I outlined above. But the point remains valid: if outlawing discrimination based on genetic tests protects employees to some degree, then it folllows that outlawing the genetic testing of individuals without their consent in the first place would enhance that protection considerably.
More importantly, if this issue isn't nipped in the bud firmly and immediately, we couold find ourselves on a slippery slope of truly brobdingnagian proportions. Imagine a world where you are under constant surveillance by law enforcement...not because you have a history of violent crime, but because you have a genetic predisposition to violence. You find it difficult to get a job because of your genetic predisposition to adult ADD, and you can't get health insurance because you are geneticlly predisposed to heart problems.
A line in the sand must be drawn now, before Gattica becomes an uncomfortable reality.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Hey, this is an easy money maker. In most nations these days, laws prevent any sort of this discriminatory nature. They have to absolutely prove that a specific trait is part of a job related task, and your aptitude for illness or disease is not a legal denial for employment. This will last about as long as it takes to file a lawsuit.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
If they find someone has a genetic flaw that means they are likely to develop CTS, wouldn't they be protected by the disabilities act?
If so, the business would really have to accomodate them with an altered, and likely expensive, work environment.
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Why did select scenes from Gattica suddenly pop into my head?
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I got this far...
Whether it's Carpal Tunnel, Blackberry Thumb or iPod Ear, you can find out all about it here at Health-Hack.com "The Health Portal for Computer Users and Abusers"(TM)
Then I cringed and glanced at the article. It's essentially a two-page intro to a Google-cached Seattle Times article. I'll save you the trouble of going to H-H.com:
Exploring the Frontiers of Life
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
What good is science if you don't use it for evil? There are too many goody-two-shoes scientists out there. Come on, more evil science please.
People are leaving genetic material all over the place all the time. From a practical standpoint this is like anything else that you discard, it doesn't belong to you any more. That being said, I wouldn't appreciate someone using my blood, sweat and tears (always available at work) for testing purposes, but what can I do?
If I were being cloned that would be different. However, I don't think ethical rules cover any of these situations.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
This reminds me of the movie Gattica in a way. How long until companies like this just refuse to hire people who are genetically prone to carple tunnle or anything else that might affect their work performance?
I know a lot about carpool tunnel. You would not believe how much faster I get to work using the carpool lanes. The company should be proud of fostering the development of carpool tunnels for their employees. Just another example of people raising a big stink about nothing.
Gorbachev sings tractors! Turnips! Buttocks!
Just plant some DNA of someone who you know who's never had Carpel Tunnel.
I don't get it.
Once you open the door to proving negatives as accepted social policy, there's no real end in sight.
Land of the free, home of the piss test.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Anyone have any more information on the tests, and the uproar about them? The article isn't to specific.
I'm simply wondering how the samples (of material for the genetic tests where collected). If they were done without employees knowledge - covertly as implied by the few statements in the article, then it poses a real threat, not for discrimination problems, but major privacy issues (like tracking someone by their genes)...
Anyhow - Gattaca anyone?
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
I almost think if it's going to be acceptible for an employer to not be liable for an employees carpal tunnel, it also means they must at least notify an employee of susceptibility as soon as tests reveal it as a possibility (as it would seem unethical to let a worker continue in a job where they would be predisposed to harm without informing them). One could argue for legal requirements that an employer can only be exempt if they test workers at time of hire.
That's all pretty onerous (having to test anyone that would type!) so it seems like eventually some sort of insurance would arise so that companies could shrug off testing every worker, and the insurance would pay out any claims that arose. An interesting question for the future though, about how much genetic testing will be required just to be employed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
is the Geek vs. Nerd gene. I mean, we all know that Nerds are nerds, but Geeks are nerds with skills. As a PHB, I want to know which one I'm hiring :)
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Carpal Tunnel, hell! What happens when they start testing for the genetic markers indicating a predisposition to spending all day browsing Slashdot? Activity on Slashdot, Fark, and other forums will fall initially fall, then skyrocket after the Great Purge!
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
I didn't read the article, but it sounds like it would be ok with permission possibly. It's no different then health screenings done by insurance agencies sometimes for health insurance.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
...if humanity does not want to end in a very harsh social darwinistic society.
More and more it is accepted to let the individual suffer for 'the gene pool'.
Alot of this can be attributed to the only crude methods which are available. Either reproduction is prevented (the lesser evil) or even individuals are exterminated (god beware -but the end of the slippery slope).
Although I don't think that a 'better' but more narrow gene pool is good at all, this seems to be what the population in the western world wants.
Instead of cruelty, it would be better to have the methods available to save the individuals from harm.
After all, what is the point of inventing the perfect homo sapiens? Is it good to narrow the gene pool that much with this increased, additional pressure?
Thanks for mentioning that movie. You are the first to suggest such a connection.
They were doing the research 5 years ago, and stopped over 4 years ago. It doesn't look like they were taking a really serious look at it anyway. How much data can they really get from 200 tests?
The problem is no one wants to assume risk. Shouldn't this be an insurance issue instead of a workman's comp issue? You have insurance companies that don't want any risk but yet want premiums. Part of the recipe for insurance is that you are paying them to assume a risk and they are betting on that risk not falling through. Further, they are making profit off your money via investment. In the case of employers, they are making these deposits on the chance that something does happen. I understand that you don't want to lose at poker, but you're playing the game. I realize this analogy breaks down at some point but isn't it equally unethical to collect insurance premiums from people who have predispositions to ANYTHING? Insurance companies are largely evil entities and unfortunately, necessary evils. My opinion, FWIW.
...welcome our new finger-nail-clipping,-shed-skin,-eye-lash-collecti ng overlords.
This sig rocks the casbah.
Maybe someone could enlighten me, but I seem to recall that you get carpal tunnel syndrome via repetive motion (eg, typing, playing the cello, etc) Aren't there keyboards and other ergo devices that could be used with the people identified by this study? Not suggesting we all beg our employers to study our genes, but the American's with Disibilities Act requires that an employer makes reasonable accomadations for an employee with a disability. Since it's a genetic predisposition that the worker has absolutely no control over, if the company tried to oust them, or not hire them at all based on this pre-existing, genetic condition wouldn't this be considered discrimination?
This has already happened. The union on the Santa Fe railroad has done this quite a while back. www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,42971,00.html
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Insurance companies and businesses have long flip flopped on the concept of "pre-existing conditions". Those are cases where a person is hired who has medical conditions that are potentially expensive to treat (e.g. diabetes, cancer, AIDS, etc.).
It used to be that insurers tried hard not to pay for conditions that existed before the person came onto the plan. As you might expect, it was hugely unpopular (insurance companies really do listen to people) as well as expensive to administer (it's expensive to decide what's pre-existing and what isn't).
I see this as the same way. When you hire a bunch of people, they'll have a range of health issues, some obvious and some hidden. Sure it's possible to try and figure out who might get what conditions, but it's not worth it. When dealing with millions of people being insured, it's typically easier to simply manage the overall risk and adjust prices accordingly. Micromanaging at that level is expensive and wasteful.
Personally, I am quite skeptical of the genetic side of the argument. Given our still pedantic understanding of DNA and genetics, I am suspicious of claims that genetic factors could contribute to the problem of carpal tunnel more than behavioral and environmental factors.
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The state has decided to shift the burden for health insurance to employers and that is what has created most of the nonsence that changed the employee-employer relationship to a slave-master relationship. Most of the drive to have employers involved in non-work areas is because of this.
... so you're saying that because we don't have nationalized health plans like all the other industrialized countries, this is what creates this desire to look inside our genes?
Interesting
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, that is what the insurance is for. An employer can probably reduce their insurance premium by showing the insurer that they have taken all reasonable precautions, but the workman's compensation law (in Michigan, at least) does not require any negligence on the part of the employer. It simply has to be shown the injury is work related.
On the one hand we espouse the notion that "all people are created equal." It's an excellent core belief for the basis for civilization, government, law, etc. Yet science makes a mockery of this belief because we are not geneticaly equal and those differences impact outcomes that have legal, governmental, and social implications.
For example, the U.S. EPA generally uses a 1-in-a-million threshold for carcinogens. A sufficiently low chance of cancer defines the threshold for safety. Yet this guideline assumes that we all share an chance or equal burden. What happens when genetic testing proves that 999,999 of every million of us have no chance of getting cancer from the substance, but that 1 identifiable person in million has a 100% chance of cancer at the "safe" threshold level of exposure. Lowering exposure to make it safe for the most sensitive individual may not be feasible.
I suspect that this will become one of the thornier issues facing future decision makers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
You raise an interesting idea. Perhaps the gene being tested for is actually a predispostition to commit workman's comp fraud.
The particulars of this case, though, I do find troublesome, with the fact that Burlington Northern Santa Fe are using an unproven method and are preparing to take action on it. However, a good lawyer will probably be able to stop them from (a) firing someone who shows the genetic markers for "carpal tunnel susceptibility," and (b) suggesting that people who do put in claims for carpal tunnel were "going to get it anyway," and disallowing the claims (unless they can show that they did take some action).
There will always be employers who are willing to jump to the conclusion that a predisposition towards something is a guarantee that it will happen. These people will use genetic tests for the latest-found markers, and will wind up not being able to hire anybody.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Woohoo, my first spelling Nazi post!
Anyways, I can see the above scenarios happening quite easily.
It didn't have a whole lot to do with the railroad case...
0 2dltr0015.html
So I found this one:
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/20
Why should they be liable for a risk you knowingly assume? If they fail to provide ergonomic keyboards, suitable working conditions and so on, then sure. But if they follow the best accepted practices of the time, I don't think they should be liable.
Not all employers require drug screening. My employer right now has never required me to pee in a bottle. Furthermore, if they tell me tomorrow that I had to, I would have the option of walking away.
The case in question had neither information nor consent. The nature of the test isn't in question; the means used to obtain the testing sample is the problem. In that respect, it is very different from typical drug screening.
Just by way of analogy. If I find a book in a trash can, you are free to read it, but you are not free to duplicate it. Admittedly, people aren't copyrighted, but we do have a right to our own image and likeness which would be infringed by a clone. Presumably identical twins fall under some sort of inadvertant exception or an evidentiary problem [Who is the original? Who is the clone?]
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
First of all, I think Burlington Northern proabably selected Carpal Tunnel as the "guinea pig" to genetically test against because it's one of the injuries taken less seriously by the general public.
It may cost them a lot in workers' comp. claims, but except for those already suffering from it, most people remain pretty unconcerned about getting it.
If you want to picture why genetic testing without permnission by an employer might be viewed as "troubling" or having a "profound" impact - all you need to do is substitute carpal tunnel for any number of other possibilites, like cancer or heart disease or alzheimer's. You name it....
Ultimately, I agree with most of your assertions. Employers aren't always bad/in the wrong. It's reasonable for an "at will" employer to want to avoid workers who won't be able to effectively perform tasks. And people don't have a "right to work for a particular employer". But none of this really changes this particular issue, IMHO.
The real issue is; do we, as a society, really think it will be beneficial to allow employers to screen their workers for *potential* problems, effectively marking a large percentage of our population as "unemployable" due to genetic tendencies to develop a disease or disorder?
I understand Burlington Northern wasn't doing this testing on potential hires.... Rather, merely trying to find a way out of paying for injuries that arguably had little to do with their work environment. But it's that "slippery slope" in effect here. If you allow them to test without permission for this, it's MUCH easier for a company to justify similar testing for other things.
On top of all of that, is it even really such a *bad* thing that one's employer takes responsibility for an employee's injuries anyway? If you have a good, productive worker (say, software developer or even data entry person) and they do get carpal tunnel - why, as an employer, do you think you're automatically in a much better position if you can get out of paying to fix it for them? If you have a machine you rely on in your business and it breaks, do you not pay to have it repaired in many cases? When you figure in the costs involved in hiring and training someone new, not to mention all the experience that walks off when you let the old employee go, it seems to me that can add up to a lot more than the cost of your health insurance on them.
"It's sort of like the handicapped parking spots everywhere - I can't remember the last time I saw someone wheelchair-bound park in one, can you?" people don't tend to park their wheelchairs in car parks, they might get run over.
Hypothetically two similar candidates compete for the same position, one with CTS and one without. Insurance costs for the one with CTS will likely be higher. The candidate without CTS gets the job. The candidate with CTS is later laid off. Can you prove in court that CTS had anything to do with this? You don't seriously think the company will tell the truth about the reasons, do you?
Yeah... maybe not wheelchair, but before my mother had knee replacement surgury, so that simply walking actually caused acute physical PAIN, she got a sticker for handicapped spots. She tried to use it as little as possible, but seriously, she is exactly the sort of case that is why those spots are THERE. There are a lot of medical reasons why walking long distances may be discomforting, painful, or harmful. Not all of them involve wheelchairs.
Don't be so quick to dismiss other peoples' problems as insignificant, just because you've been fortunate enough not to have had to suffer them yourself.
While we're at it, I hear that strip clubs discriminate against disabled dancers when hiring, and supermodels discriminate against geeks when selecting sex partners! This blantant discrimination must end! I say we demand legislation now to mandate quotas for supermodels dating slashdot readers!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
that evolution continues, even in the bleeding heart charity world. Whereas before, organisms with genetic defects were simply unfit to survive, now they are denied employement. They should at least give you a darwin award before kicking you out of the gene pool.
Could you imagine what it would be like if the bleeding hearts were around in paleolithic times and had to save every mutation unfit to survive in it's habitat? "Oh no! Another species is going to become extince if we don't do something to assuage my subconscious guilt!" Crimney, we'd have Mesozoic Era Diplodocus carnegii still collecting welfare, I tell you.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
As I expected, there are, again, some anglo-saxon neo-liberal capitalists busy trying to talk this kind of behaviour 'right'.
I'm a libertarian myself, and all for (moderate) capitalism, but all this rampant justifying god damn everything to what the economical benefit of it is, makes me puke. The inherent greed, amount of self-centrism and self-serving egotism, the twisted ethics of such grabbing corporations and 'businessmen' who have a severe lack of empathy always gives me the shivers. Let the world be run by corporations, and you are living under fascism, basically.
This latest is only one step further, but if there isn't a clear oposition against it... you may one day welcome the brave new world of Gattaca.
While, at the bottom line, and regardless of all those posts with justifications and explanatory crap for why it's not that bad an idea, it comes down to this: it's discrimination. Plain and simple. just as your gender, your race, etc. CAN NOT be a factor (at least legally) when applying somewhere for work, so is your genetic profile.
People who fail to see this probably have serious problems with understanding any ethical behaciour in society, IMHO. Economical darwinism my ass: that philosophy sucked since it was created in the 19th century. I prefer to see people as people, not as economical units.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Did you agree to random drug tests, at their whim? Perhaps they wanted to see your credit report?
In my experience, companies are constantly trying to gain more concessions from their employees, often without granting anything to the employee in exchange.
It's natural, then, that they're moving on to these genetic test - at least from the company's perspective. Employees, however, are balking at this brand new intrusion for now. But how long until it's just like that drug test that everyone else seems to be OK with, simply because they aren't looking for you?
If you don't speak out for others, no one will be left to speak out for you. This is why Unions are still a good thing - it allows workers to speak up against policies such as this while protecting themselves from direct retribution at work, since the company doesn't know who, exactly, started the complaint.
My genetic information is protected by the DMCA.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Health insurance is basically a bet on your health by the insurance providers. Once either you or they get more risk information than the other then the risk pool gets distorted and people receive innordinate premiums or get no coverage at all.
The only real solution is to void the entire health insurance industry and migrate to a system where the state covers the health of each citizen regardless. As the article illustrates, this process has already started on its own accord.
Was it because she was a bad employee? Nope - her work record was spotless and her evaluations were impeccable. No, it was because BN-SF went out of their way to try to make people quit before they reached retirement. They did this to everyone in hopes of avoiding paying those hard-earned pensions.
Therefore, it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that they're trying to screw over yet another set of employees. That's been their SOP for years, so I can't imagine they'd turn tail now.
By the way, if you want an example of a completely incompetent union, there you have it. I'm not pro-union to begin with, but I'd expect one to at least try to help its members.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
...testing someone who has already been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, in an effort to determine what caused it and to what degree; and testing someone before offering them the job, or insurance coverage, etc. Many people would find the former to be a reasonable means of investigating a medical malady; many more may find the latter an unreasonable invasion of privacy without cause.
Many employers require employees to submit to drug tests after an accident in the workplace; not too many people have a philosophical problem with that. More people seem to be concerned with drug testing employees without prior cause for suspicion.
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All conditions. Because of the failings of the government and demands in society in this country, social welfare has been forced onto the private sector, employers specifically. If the government can't afford something, it'll just pass on the cost to employers.
rather genetically select poeple than buying a better keyboard for 50 bucks more... and losing all those great developers too. if this is no money-prurienced short-sightedness, then what is ist? poor is the man that has no other ideals than money.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I have major "ethical" problems with employer genetic testing.
Then again, I do not berate and denigrate any opposition on ethical grounds to embryonic stem cell research. In fact, I have raised objections towards some stemm-cell research (for instance, with genetic brain-tissue experiments.)
So, I guess that means at least some remain consistent. And it doesn't imply one can't be against your views, on rational, yet ethical grounds (that said, a premise first would have to be agreed on, because ethics are be nature subjective).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
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.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
...being "young and arrogant." Pride comes before a fall, son. Wisdom comes when you begin to suspect how incredibly ignorant you are (I'm personally not anywhere near there yet).
"...all the folks I know with 'carpal'..."
Your experience is very limited, young man. Have you been to college? If so, you should have an idea of how incredibly few people you have actually met in your short life time.
"It's sort of like the handicapped parking spots everywhere - I can't remember the last time I saw someone wheelchair-bound park in one, can you?"
They aren't just for Stephen Hawkings, dude. There are folks with heart conditions that would have a coronary from walking from the last row at Wal Mart, but just from looking at them you couldn't know they had a handicap.
You wouldn't know of my friend Mike's handicap without close scrutiny - he had polio as a child. Very painful.
In short, sir, your arrogance has blinded you. Arrogance leads to continued ignorance, because if you think you know everything, how could you possibly learn anything?
Grow up.
in what could be a troubling trend, one employer...
One data point - yep, that could make it a trend.
----
WWJD...For a Klondike Bar?
a bunch of whiners who exagerate the smallest of aches and pains for pity/attention/etc.
a bunch of phoneys trying to milk the system
No, you're not a young and arrogant bastard, you're a heartless, ignorant asshole. I say this as a cancer survivor with a broken back who has gotten used to pain (and, no, I don't have a handicapped permit). I have friends and relatives whose problems make mine look trivial. For the most part, they continue to work hard (until they are too disabled to work at all), but they often need a little help to get through life - a handicapped permit so they can hobble (sans wheelchair) to the store without collapsing in the parking lot, some pain killers, an ergo chair that doesn't kill their back, etc.
Let me know when your body starts going bad so I can come laugh at the justice of it all.
No sig? Sigh...
"The ethical considerations of such testing, covert and illicit or not, are profound for those of us working in the IT industry."
What about those of us not working in the IT industry? Is genetic testing by employers not an important issue for everyone? I don't see any reason to assume that this practice will stop at testing for predisposition for carpal tunnel syndrome.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Hmm, I'm not sure why the grandparent was modded down... employers wouldn't have much incentive to run such secret tests in, for example, Canada.
"Why should they be liable for a risk you knowingly assume?"
The very act of engaging in business begets liability in a multitude of forms. If an employee burns their hand on a coffee pot in the workplace, the employer is liable for damages regardless of whether the employee knowingly assumed the risk of contacting a potentially hot surface. This is the way it works, carpal tunnel in the workplace is no different.
Is it right? I don't think so. The U.S. is WAY too attached to lawsuits. It's considered "The American Way", but I find it deplorable. People sue for everything from physical injuries to emotional distress. Personally, I think opportunists suck.
I'm not as extreme as one opinion I heard which stated that you should be able to carry out an abortion until they're old enough to vote. (They can shoot back and are usually faster on the draw.)
Besides, you're making assumptions one way or another about the sort of life this undifferentiated mass of cells, that is what we're talking about, would have lived.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Genetic testing resulting in employment decisions is the worst kind of discrimination. You can't compare genetic testing with the basic sort of physicals that insurance companies do to screen prospective clients. Aside from doing basic bloodwork, insurance companies mostly only ask for a run of the mill physical. In this case we're talking about a company attempting to classify your abilities and physical/genetic disposition toward certain diseases or physical maladies.
Inherently a test like this would be based almost entirely on genetic probabilities that result from specific environmental conditions. The only way this could be compared to an insurance physical is when State Farm or Blue Cross decides not to sell you life insurance or health insurance because you have Type 1 Diabetes. Carefully managed, type 1 is no big deal, but many insurance companies still refuse to sell insurance of any kind for certain kinds of diabetics. This sort of discrimination is already prevelant today and to suggest that further testing, revealing more serious health issues, wouldn't encourage discrimination is ignorant.
Everyone keeps referring to GATTACA, but what they're not saying is that this particular film isn't even worst case scenario. They promote individuals with clean genetic compositions to elite positions within their society, while all other are relegated to menial labor jobs---all based on genetic profiling. In a truly worst case scenario world those predisposed to certain diseases would simply be eliminated.
I think GATTACA is optimistic. We live in a worst case scenario world where people believe it won't hurt to do genetic testing; where it's not a big deal as long as you have nothing to hide---and don't forget that United We Stand, and everybody else is an unpatriotic clod.
Allowing this kind of oversight into the probabilities and possibilities of ones future based on any test is the kind of 1984 tactics that we should all be smart enough to scream "NO, NO, NO" at.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat." - Jaws
Every last person has different genes and is below average in some category or other. Allowing employers to screen for these conditions is akin to making every action you take illegal. It would simply be a handy dandy basket of excuses ready to to get a company off the hook for the slightest deviation from safe working conditions.
Slipped on loose carpeting and hurt your ankle and out for a couple of days? Ha! Your genes show you only have 99% of the average person's balance control due to a genetic defect in yoru inner ear. You lose.
Don't say this won't happen. It will. You know it will. Corporations aren't evil so much as susceptible to faceless bureaucrats looking for a pat on the back for saving money.
Infuriate left and right
"Handicapped people" is not the same group as "wheelchair-bound people". There are plenty of people who have problems (e.g. multiple sclerosis) that restrict them to walking only very short distances.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
You cab always find money for the newest way to injure people. You just can't find a dime to put them back together again.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
But if they could help who they are, and pay for testing that would disqualify you BEFORE they hired you, whould you bitch about it?
The problem with the inevitable testing, (and if you think its not inevitable, you fooling yourself,) is that they are trying to apply it retroactively to their current employees.
THAT stinks.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
a) Embryos don't have bodies? No, they just have bodies that are different from yours or mine. In the same way that my body is different from that of a newborn child or a 90 year old man. An embryo is living and is genetically human and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable treating them as things. The best argument is that they don't have minds, but this is an argument in the much larger and abstract argument of what is it that makes human beings worthy of protection under law. Is being a living human being enough? Does it require conciousness? If so what is consciousness? Can you prove if someone has or does not have consciousness? Again, a question we don't have a real answer to.
b) This begs the question of whether or not it was ethical to create the embryos in the first place knowing that most of them were going to be thrown away. Now we're back at the question in 'a', what makes a human being worthy of protection? And besides, starving kids in Africa are going to die anyway, why not harvest their organs? Think of all the good we could do! Hell, you and I are going to die some day. Killing you or I now isn't going to result in any loss of life that wasn't going to be lost anyway, so obviously there would be absolutely nothing wrong with scientists killing us to study us as long as it would benefit society!
There are still a lot of unanswered questions and grey areas when it comes to embryonic stem cell research that no one can answer. The only reason people choose to gloss over these and support embryonic stem cell research is because they are blinded by the potential benefit we might derive. I know it's cliche, but the ends do not justify the means. Unfortunately it seems a lot of people in America have forgotten that.
The laws of probability forbid it!
That one movie with Ewan McGregor. Can anyone think of it? I think it might have been "Trainspotting."
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
Its the office brown-noser who says wether you stay or go.
So you're faced with a dilemma. Do you become the brown-noser's brown-noser?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Thanks to having a Human Resources Lawyer as a Professor for Legal Env. in college, I got this information very upfront:
NJ has clasified discrimination on the basis of Genetics at the same level as sex, orientation, religion, race, etc.
One of only a few places in the world to actually do this.
The law has been on the books for some time. It's clear cut discrimination. No real question about it.
In most places in the US though... it's 100% legal.
Ethically? Yea, it's pretty unethical.
The GP clearly stated that they can be tested with a warrant, and it's already in law that you can get warrants for SUSPECTS, so not knowing as a fact the guilt of the suspect would not protect them from being tested. And using a rapist identification scenario is a little underhanded, why didn't you add that they were a child rapist? And what is wrong with it being illegal to covertly conduct genetic tests on employees, seems to fit perfectly with the spirit of other privacy laws. Your argument about "shouldn't shed your crap then..." is about a logical as arguing that you shouldn't use imperfect data transfer protocols if you want legal data privacy, and that hacking and intercepting these susceptible protocols should be no crime. Or that you should have lead lined walls if you want to prevent your neighboor from spying on your actions inside your house using heat detection cameras, and that the neighboor is committing no crime. Employers aren't your god, nor your government, they do not have a right to violate legitimate forms of privacy, just as you do not have the legal right to hack people or use surveillance equipment to spy into a private residence.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway case was part of a PBS show that aired in June 2003 under the title "Bloodlines". Use this link for your local show times. http://www.pbs.org/bloodlines
The only problem with your argument is Why does the test get done after the Injury? If the test works, don't you have a right to know that doing X is going to injure you? Blows that whole argument away...
I have RSI. I have constant mild chronic pain in my upper back and wrists which becomes acute when I use a computer without a break for more than about one and a half hours. I don't whine about it to my friends and I don't try to milk my employer (on the contrary, I've accepted a salary cut because of my reduced work performance). I have to devote most of my free time to RSI treatment, doing 10 minutes of self-massage and stretches every hour and going swimming 5 days a week. If I don't do this, the pain can prevent me from sleeping at night.
I didn't get RSI because I'm lazy. I got it because I'm an obsessive workaholic, regularly doing 10-hour programming and writing marathons. It wrecked my muscles and now I'm paying for my overzealousness. It's well-known among RSI therapists that those most prone to the condition are typically the most dedicated workers. And you have the gall to actually accuse RSI sufferers of being lazy whiners!
Despite your misinformed claim, computer work actually imposes considerable stresses on the human body. It keeps the same small, weak muscles in a tense state for hours on end, never giving them a chance to rest and heal. The human body was never meant to be used in this way: it's designed for dynamic activities like running and swimming. It's not surprising that if we do something as unnatural as sitting parked in the same rigid position for years and years, injury will result.
The day they prove that a "logic and problem solving gene" exists I will buy your argument. You will wait a long time for that day, however. The closest we can get is being able to measure "intelligence" on a standardized scale, and even that doesn't guarantee me that an individual with a higher IQ will do better in a given situation. It's a measure of potential only.
They are explicitly using an UNPROVEN test to prevent someone from getting a job on the basis that if they score positive on this test they will develop carpal tunnel. Says who?
There are two issues here:
1. Your doctor is not allowed to run any test on you without your permission. You are entitled to a full explanation as to what any test involves, how the procedure is performed, what the risks are, and how the results can affect you. You are NEVER obliged to undergo any medical procedure. How come your boss suddenly can do all this without telling you, let alone asking your permission?
2. One of the first things you learn in medical school is that there are NO absolutes in medicine. No test is ever 100% correct all the time. We learn that we can use statistics and probability to guide our behaviour, however a physician must always remember that we treat patients, not numbers. This means that there is always the possibility that the patient in front of me will be the exception, and I have to allow for it.
With this test, someone is trying to infer that "because X percentage of the population with carpal tunnel show a positive result on this test, then a person with a positive result has X percent chance of developing carpal tunnel." This is completely false. You can never apply statistical data directly to an individual. How do you know the person is not precisely in the percentage that won't develop carpal tunnel? You don't. Therefore why are you denying them a job? It's like denying a job to a 20 year old woman because she could get pregnant. Yes, she could. But she might not.
Medical science must always be FOR the patients' benefit, and never the reverse. Physicians should not allow others to use this information against people or their livelyhoods.
Instead of using this test perhaps the company could invest the money in figuring out WHY their employees have carpal tunnel.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If there is a pattern of harrassing workers near retirement, it should be trivial to prove age discrimination. I don't know about the land of the "Free", but in Canada you are guilty of civil rights violation if you discriminate on the basis of age (between 18 and 65). Picking on people with 30 years' seniority or pushing 60 years of age should be a slam-dunk for age discimination. I don't think you can argue "the old ones with only 10 years seniority didn't get this treatment". That would be like arguing "But we only discrimated against the ugly , not the good-looking ones." In either case, rightly, discrimination is a significant component of the management decision. A union that couldn't prove that, then either the pattern is not as obvious as you claim or the union and their lawyers are incompetent. Making engineering supervisors clean toilets is a pretty obvious sign of harrassment.
Although I agree with some opinions mentiond in your post and disagree with others I would like to comment on only one phrase:
"their lack of support for measures that would help those living in poverty"
I am completely in favor of helping people that live in poverty. I donate money and time to help such people.
I am very against any government (i.e. tax money) support for such help.
If I think that it is our moral obligation to help those less fortunate than me, then I should pay for it with my own time and money, not force you to pay for it.
Not only do I believe that there is no justification for forcing you to use your money to support such help, but I believe that such mandatory charity programs hurt both the "giver" and the recipient.
(The "giver" loses all the [spiritual/psychological/social] benefits that we usually associate with altruistic acts. The recipient gains a sense of sloth, because the law says that he/she deserves something for nothing.)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
We would have to define "perfect" before calculating.
If we subscribe to evolution as the theory of man's beginnings than we are a collection of mutatations.
If we subscribe to an Intellegent Design theory (created in the image of God) then why so many differences in our genetic makeups?
So what is the "base" upon which we compare perfection?
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
It was "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property."
Before then, all property was assumed to be the king's. After, the declaration of independence all that changed was that it no longer assumed to belong to the kind. Who it was assumed to belong to was left 'up in the air.'
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
im surprised nobody has mentioned this, but obesity is one of the biggest links to CPS, see http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/who_gets_car pal_tunnel_syndrome_000034_4.htm
but getting people to be healthy is much harder than telling them they have CPS
Thats why walmart now has the battery powered tanks for the 300 pound fat people who cannot steer properly (paritally because they cannot turn their necks to see, and partially because of the fat dangling from their arms interferes with the controls).
And yes, apparently the little silver basket is only designed for smokes and "ding-dongs" as the other poster mentioned.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
So...the employer claims that they are not liable for a work related injury because the employee is genetically predisposed to said injury. How far are we from insurance companies refusing coverage for diseases where the victim is genetically predisposed? Thankfully, this specific case was shut down by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...I hope that is the trend that is set from this case.
We live in a denial-based society where everything is somebody else's fault. Instead of modifying our behavior or actions to accomodate reality, we come up with some reason to blame our failures on others. Here the railroad fails to provide a safe workplace, so they try to blame it on the genetics of their employees. Do anything except own up to the problem and admit that something might need to change on their part. Next they will want detailed interviews with family members so they can screen out anyone whose parents didn't nuture them "correctly". It won't stop until we live in a Brave New World. The whole process gets institutionalized, and they call it 'idealogy', where facts and reality are inconvenient impediments. Anyone who studies circuits knows that a system needs to apply negative feedback to improve the quality of the output. We have disconnected the feedback and replaced it with essentially noise. This is why our culture is doomed.
I have yet to meet someone, short of someone convicted of a crime, who was forced to take a piss test (and that's using a very loose definition of force). You want to take a piss test, because you want that position of employment. If your principles don't allow you to take the test, you have to decide if your principles are more important than that job. As far as I see it, the choice is still in your hands.
I hate all of this stuff. I understand that it costs companies money to buy health insurance and pay for health-related costs, but they have been going too far to cut costs lately. First it was forcing people to quit smoking or forcing them to lose weight. Now it's this crap. I would rather pay a larger percentage of my insurance (company pays most of it now) than have to worry about whether or not the second hand smoke at the bar will show up on my next company-mandated piss test or a medical problem that I have is genetic and, therefore, pre-existing and not covered by insurance at all. If this is allowed to continue, it will effectively become a eugenics program because people who have any "bad genes" will not be able to get insurance and/or good jobs.
>Genetic Discrimination in the IT Workplace. Yes, discrimination is in their DNA :)
no one should have access to my genetic code without my permission or a warrant. Period.
One obnoxious little problem: you're leaving bits of genetic material lying around all the time - including on other people's property. Hair, dandruff, and other tidbits of you are just lying around waiting to be observed.
The problem is that people have a presumptuous division between what is available for observation and what is not. The privacy of your home does not reasonably include what you do in the front yard or behind windows with the drapes open and lights on - precisely because such things are simply open to observation. We used to think walls and closed drapes provided an assurance of privacy, but that is now in question as technology can pick up infrared, millimeter-wave, and other electromagnetic radiation other than light - it's all right there to be observed, limited only by observation devices.
Just looking at you, we can make certain genetic evaluations: colorings, gender, shape, sounds, behavior, etc. which can all be intelligently observed to render reasonable conclusions about your genetic makeup, and deduce possible future consequences as a result. What then of all the pieces you leave behind for someone to pick up and analyze closer?
How can access to your genetic code be controlled when all someone need do is pick up a hair you left behind? This is oddly comparable to DVD encryption: we object to laws preventing us from reading & decrypting a DVD we hold in hand, but demand laws preventing others from doing practically the same with DNA in hair, dander, fingerprints, etc. that we leave wherever we go. You leave a fingerprint on my doorknob - why can't I decypher the DNA therein?
A warrant to access your information presumes you have means of preventing, or at least hindering, physical access to that information - and a court order is the only way, short of brute force, to persuade you to grant access. How can you demand a warrant to access information, to wit DNA, you leave around for anyone to simply reach out and take & decode? It's like the idiocy of being unable to photograph a building - right there for all to see - because it has been copyrighted.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Mod up parent, moderators
...
Have to agree, I thought the root post was an insightful commentary on the actual driving forces behind genetic testing usage by employers.
Guess I'll have to metamod whoever modded it down
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
After all, railroads have a history of treating all their employees fairly and equitably, and of taking great care to ensure that their health concerns are addressed quickly.
Yeah, and if you believe that, there's probably a monkey flying out of your butt right now.
Plus, what is the suggested plan for those unemployable due to genetic tendencies? As far as I can tell, under current laws, you'd basically have to lable it a disability, and you still wouldn't be able to not hire people because of it.
Even if you didn't, and these people just wouldn't be employed, you just have more welfare people... How does this help?
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
The company I work for (Brand X, they run a bunch of nursing homes) has a random drug test policy. The Administrator of the building I work in has said many times that she doesn't do the drug tests because if they enforced that policy, half of the building would be fired.
I have recently begun researching such facilities for an aging parent... I've come to believe that your observation are a universal constant for that field. Question: Do you have to be stoned to deal with an aged person? (Come to think of it, that might help me with my parent...)
Funny, I read the actual article and I don't feel like I'm going to lose my job because of the way my nucleotides are paired up.
The debate might as well be over whether or not my employer is obligated to protect me from a job that, due to my genes, will hurt me.
If I own a peanut butter factory, shouldn't I be concerned about hiring people who are allergic to peanuts? Can I be sued if I hire someone who could die if they are exposed to the excess amounts of peanut protein floating in the air?
This 2002 article in the Duke Law & Technology Review by Samantha French sheds more light more light on the topic. (First hit when you Google "Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway genetic testing")
We do not have national car insurance either. Insurance should be made affordable and we should be able to buy it on our own.
Taking the burden of HI off the employeer is great, but putting it on the government is not necessarily the best either.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
These "opinions" where some respondents claim that "most" people who think one way also think another way are nothing more than a desire to stereotype people without knowing any facts.
An unwed mother I know believes strongly in Pro-choice, meaning she believes a woman has the right to choose whether or not she will have an abortion. She is not pro-abortion nor anti-abortion, but she made that for herself instead of having it mandated by someone else or the government. She decided to have the child, but that does not make her pro or anti anything.
This would hardly be a perfect system, but I think the best idea for health care in the United States is to have truly competitive health insurance. In other words, employers no longer cover health care and insurance companies sell affordable policies directly to the public. This seems to work for every other form of insurance. The advantage would be that people would have a choice as to which company to use. The down side would be that people have to pay more for their health care, but right now so many health care costs are hidden so really this system would just make them more obvious. There could be special risk pools like with auto insurance. If I'm not subsidizing the auto insurance of a 3-time DUI offender, why should I currently be subsidizing health care for a 4 pack a day smoker?
There are certainly flaws to this system, but I'd rather have choices as opposed to the current system which leaves me little choice. I'd far rather have something like this than national health care, which would basically be like one big HMO. If they deny your care, you're screwed. When consumers can get away from a bad insurance company, it kind of keeps them in line.
Bottom line is, if we expect top quality health care, it won't be free. Not until doctors and nurses start working for free. It would be much better to have at least some control over what and who we pay for health care.
You only need to walk as far as the cash register or help desk, and then you can ask an employee to get the item(s) you need for you.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The first cite in the summary is someone newly fascinated that the Human Genome project may have "revealed a gene for predisposition to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome". Nothing more new there.
The second article is an Op-Ed piece calling for the US House of Representatives to pass a bill introduced by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, but with co-sponsors including Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, Democrats of Washington to "prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment". The writer of the Op-Ed piece is none other than Dr. Francis S. Collins the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, one of the 27 institutes and centers making up the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md. And it is only the fact that he is throwing his support behind this bill that is new.
And I agree with that being praise worthy, maybe even newsworthy, however the Slashdot headline and summary would have you believe that the running of tests has been ongoing, or is recent.
I know it is off topic, so please don't mod me so... but your site rocks. bout time someone told the truth about 31337ists
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
It's not really that much different. Proving you don't have some genetic condition isn't that much different than proving you don't do illegal drugs.
Last time I checked you couldn't choose not to have a genetic condition... nor was it illegal to have a certain condition.
"So enlighten us -- what are they?"
It's discrimination.
Ofcourse, if one thinks genetic discrimination as not being an ethical issue, then clearly this point may seem un-enlightening.
I refute the whole notion that corporations can't be hold accountable for their (un)ethical behaviour. Corporations are an integral part of society, not something *outside* it. Therefor, whether their personal goal is grabbing as much profit for the shareholder or not, is irrelevant; they STILL have to abide by the rules of the society, which, aparently, feels that there is need for laws against discrimination (and what not).
My view on things is, that companies have the right to earn (some) profit, but not the right to maximise their profits at the expense of individual people.
I do not subscribe to your rosy view that corporations would take care of their employees; when we look at the 'raw' capitalism of the 19th century, we can see that very few actually looked after their workforce. In fact, most of the time, they were ruthlessly exploited.
"A failed drugs-in-the-blood test on application for employment is now a legitimate reason not to employ."
Maybe in your country. Which is, I would bet, the USA, because no western country is so much tight-assed about drugs and the whole 'war against it'. I do not think that would fly here, certainly when some drugs are (more or less) allowed, and there seems to be little precedent in not accepting someone who uses substances he is allowed to use. (We're not talking about him being actuallly still under influence, obviously, because that is something different).
But, I'm glad you acknowledge that an employer is part of society, and thus is bound by its rules. And if the goal of *society* (and not the corporations) is to provide the most wellfare to the most people, then discrimatory and other unethical behaviour of corporations should not be allowed, just as it is not allowed by any other citizen. The excuse of lessened financial profit for their shareholders is in that case irrelevant.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"I don't have a problem with it - if you have a genetic issue that could prevent you from doing the job you're being hired for, I don't think they should have any reason to hire you over someone who doesn't have it. It's not any different than not having to hire someone in a wheelchair to sweep and mop the steps in your building."
1. If the condition was that overt as to outright prevent you from doing your job _now_, I'd like to think it would be obvious enough without genetic testing. E.g., you don't need need genetic testing to see that your prospective janitor is in a wheelchair. E.g., you don't need genetic testing to see that someone has Down's syndrome, or to put it otherwise that he's genetically retarded, which is pretty much one of the very few conditions that would make one unfit for, say, IT or programming work. (If you need genetic testing to not hire a retard, in the medical sense of the word, as, say, a programmer, frankly you should leave someone else do the hiring.)
2. What it's a lot more likely to end up used as, is as to discriminate against people who _might_ sometime in the future have problems. E.g., someone who's more likely to have heart problems later or whatever. But might just as well never actually have a problem. Or against someone whose genes say he's more likely to get addicted, _if_ they ever try drugs, even if at the moment they're not doing any drugs.
Which, frankly, is like discriminating against drivers because they _might_ end up in a wheelchair someday. Or against computer gamers because they _might_ turn up into violent criminals and shoot up the office, as the media keeps assuring us.
Frankly, I'd rather see people judged for what they've done or what they are qualified/motivated to do now, than upon wild guesses as to what they might (but just as well might not) do in the future.
3. It's also opening the gate for a stuff that's just a case of personal morals/prejudices/whatever than actually affecting the job in any way, and in this case preemptively.
E.g., assuming that there actually is a "predisposed to homosexuality" gene, or at least that anyone can suspect one to be it, what's to keep an employer from refusing to employ those? Again, it's just a personal morals/religion call, not something that affects one's ability to do most jobs. And again it's something that would just say "predisposed", and doesn't mean that someone actually _is_ actively homosexual.
4. But what scares me the _most_ is the opportunity to just turn it into one more work-avoidance technique on the part of management.
Already if you think everyone actually hires by comparing everyone's merits and experience, you're sadly mistaken. The first thing that gets applied is some arbitrary bogus criterion of getting rid of most applications, just to make the job easier.
And I don't even mean just stuff like appearance, or filtering them by how much you like the supplied email address, or whatever. There are some truly abhominable criteria out there.
There was a documentary on it on some French channel, some years ago. The mind boggled. At least one company used numerology to select a pool of suitable candidates. (No, really. Assign numbers to the letters in the candidate's name, add them up, see if it matches the sum for the company's name. Literally.) A few used Tarot. (Yes, literally. They had a seer which used Tarot cards to see which candidates have that magical match to the company.) Etc.
I can just see Genetics being used in the same way.
And, frankly, the world doesn't need more bogus hiring criteria.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
1. is an unfertilized egg a person?
2. is one of my skin cells a person?
3. at what point does placing a skin cell nucleus in an unfertilized egg quit being a tissue culture and start being a person?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
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.
The problem is that the large chunks of the population who can't afford privatised health insurance are also the people most likely to need it - ie: more likely to get sick or injured.
The ethical issue is what to do with them - if you provide any sort of "free" healthcare to them, at which point (in terms of income) do you draw the line at stopping such a "free" service ? Moreover, if you fund such a system through taxation, why should the people paying for it (the "rich") not be able to benefit from it ?
It would be much better to have at least some control over what and who we pay for health care.
The system here in Australia is a "universal" healthcare system (Medicare) that covers everyone, however, there are also a large number of private healthcare insurnace providers that people can choose to purchase "additional" cover from. The advantage to choosing the private health cover in addition to Medicare is the former will cover the costs of a private room in hospital (vs just a public ward), quicker access to "better" doctors (in particular for elective surgery) and benefits for non-essential health-related costs (eg: gym memberships, contact lenses, orthodontics, etc). A certain proportion of the annual private health cover premium is also tax-deductible - and if you earn more than about AU$50k (I think the average wage is about $42k) it's cheaper overall (because of the tax deduction) to take out the private health cover. Note that taking out private health cover does not stop you from also using Medicare-funded services (although, obviously, not taking advantage of the private health cover if you have it is a bit silly).
This seems to me to be a reasonably balanced concept. It allows a level of competition between the private health insurance companies, but also has "safety net" cover for those who can't afford private cover.
You can't fucking be serious.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
The same thing could be used to weed out most anyone in any career, if the company really wanted to push it.
How about insurance companies " sorry, you have the *potential* for illness xyz, we refuse to cover you ".
Or one step further.. " you have the potential to have mental illness in the future, so we will need to detain you, for your own safety of course.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"was found to have secretly run unproven genetic tests on workers suffering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." LAWSUIT!!!!
I would check these sites / recommendations out for MS: http://www.doctoryourself.com/ short version of protocol: http://www.townsendletter.com/May2003/klennerproto col0503.htm
I know several people whose various neuropathies had great benefit or disappeared. I would research this one as if my future depended on it. Go see a naturopathic doctor.
All I know is that the nursing staff is usually pretty nice. The nursing aides are horrible monsters who yell at the Alzheimers patients and make comments to other aides about how big a "pain in the ass" the resident is being.
I'd avoid the warehouse type nursing homes. If money isn't too big of an issue, look for an "assisted living" center. With single apartments for the residents.
They usually smell better.
It's tough finding good help at places like where I work. End of Life care is difficult. The best nurses and aides are really sensitive to how the patient/resident is feeling. When you don't know when they're going to go, having 5 die on the floor you work on is very hard and can drive people away from that kind of job.
I know that after I've worked in a place like this I would rather go into debt and hire a visiting nurse than put my parent into a place like that.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Some conditions are easier to deal with in ways other then medicine though. I have asthma and it was my doctor that taught me medication and breathing exercises. It works far better then any medication does except when you are having an attack.
The problem with using medicine all the time instead of breathing exercises is that your body adapts to it and it takes more to achieve the same effect.
I am not saying that medicine is bad but that medicine combined with other methods can achieve a much better result at lower cost and more safely.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
See: http://users.rcn.com/smith.ma.ultranet/athena4.htm l#5/
A positive diagnostic test should reliably identify an individual who would have developed carpal tunnel syndrome, not due to the job conditions, but rather due to the patient's own genetic predisposition. Such a patient might very well have been expected to develop a pressure palsy such as carpal tunnel syndrome even in a less physically demanding job. A claim on the part of such a patient that they ought to be compensated by the company for an injury that they were likely destined to sustain anyway would therefore be difficult to support.
On the other hand, the bit about testing the patients WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION would be considered UNETHICAL by most physicians (and all ethical physicians). The diagnosis of HNPP can be made WITHOUT genetic testing, and a positive genetic test raises issues of employability and insurability not only in the patient but also in their relatives. The patient and family members should not be exposed to risk of loss of employability and insurability without full disclosure of consequences of such genetic testing.
IN SHORT:
Use of this genetic test by a company to prove that they are not responsible for an employee's injuries is defensible, and is not a violation of the patient's rights.
Use of this genetic testing without permission of the individuals involved is deplorable, and is a violation of their rights.
It is not the genetic testing that is the issue, but rather the covert nature of that testing.
I also fail to see how you can categorically say that abortions are a net benefit to society. We have no way to know the total value of the alternative outcomes to each case. For example, though we probably aborted a lot of people that would otherwise be in prison, we may also have aborted a small number of people who would have contributed very positive things. How do you weigh the value of these things against eachother? Which do you value more, a cure for cancer or a 20% drop in the crime rate? Further more, does this cold social benefit calculus even apply to a society that claims to give preference to individual rights over the common good. Does the fact the many of those who were aborted were statistically more likely to become criminals excuse the abortion of those that wouldn't have turned out that way, and doesn't this all violate the "guily until proven innocent" presumption of common law jurisprudence.
Finally as to your discussion about overpopulation, you might want to update your 1960's era data an talking points. Population growth is projected to peak during this century and begin to decline. If you look at the OECD countries you can already see the large declines in population beginning, those that aren't seeing population declines are being saved by immigration. The "millions" waiting to be adopted are primarily older children who have severe and problems that probably require extensive (and expensive?) treatment, things that most parents aren't going to take on voluntarily. Have you any idea what waiting lists and red tape and cost that one must endure to adopt a baby? There are plenty of people looking to adopt children, just not many that want to take a 4 year old crack baby. That is a crack problem, not one related to "excess population" or lack of adoptive home in general.
As for poverty, the biggest CAUSE of poverty is not lack of aid, as the lack of aid does not explain why they are poor in the first place, and how anyone else can afford to give them aid. Obviously there are reasons that some countries are wealthy and others are poor. When you boil down the statistics on wealth though, one thing becomes clear. Corruption specifically and fair legal institutions in general as well as some semblance of a transparent market economy is pretty much a sure predictor of wealth. The correlation is significant, and very strong running both ways, unlike resources and other proposed causes of wealth. Fundamentally, giving aid is a wonderful thing to do, but given the alternative uses of the money, and given the relatively low level of pass through of government aid to the people that it is supposed to help, you can't help but question if it's such a good idea, at least on the governmental level.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
I'm not denying that that is the state of affairs... but the GP is suggesting that they ought to be liable for such damages, and I disagree. I think americans need to learn to assume responsibility for their own actions rather than seeing out a deep pocket to sue everytime they get a paper cut.
Employer: We need a blood sample for genetic testing, a credit report, a drug test, and a background check before we turn you loose to serve our customers their food.
Potential Employee: Sure, just let me in your corporate accounting section for a few hours. I'll do my research to make sure its worth my time and effort to work with you. Also, I'll need the names of all your current and past employees. Thank you drive through.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
My sister was hired by the NRC, coming on with a strong case of Primary MS. They accomodated her for several years (large screen monitor back when those cost a pretty penny, two hour "lunch" so she could nap midday on a cot in her office, etc), until her medical condition compelled retirement-- increased eye tremors left her unable to read a book or computer screen, even with technological assistance.
The government employee pool is large enough to be statistically self-insuring-- the health plan isn't spectacular, but it's far from bad, and a minor thing like Relapsing/Remitting MS isn't even a blip on the radar.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
They end up looking for genetic factors leading to unconcealed recklessness. See, there are plenty of reckless drivers who conceal their behavior. They will become a higher percentage of the surviving driving population, so will be less easy to predict than those who are obviously reckless.
This ends up rewarding sneakiness, which means the criminals that remain will be much harder to catch.
The genetics of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and the case of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad are discussed at length in one chapter of a recent book, Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE). This chapter is freely available on the CDC's website. The chapter addresses the issues: "...are genetic risks likely to be important in these cases of CTS; and is there a scientific rationale for testing these workers?" The authors of the article conclude that... "There is no information indicating that equally exposed workers, with and without various genotypes, are at different risks of CTS. What data are available suggest that genetic factors play a very minor role, if any in male railroad track workers. Ultimately, some genetic factors may be found that contribute along with occupational factors to CTS but such information is not available at this time." More literature for the ambitious at PubMed.
...for CLA (Chronic Lazy Ass) Syndrome. If proven to be a genetic disorder, a company can not fire someone suffering from CLA Syndrome but will instead have to modify that employee's job to no more than 21 hours a week or 3 full work days (no more than 7 hours a day naturally).
YaY for genetic disorders!
The time to test workers for a genetic disposition towards a debilitating condition isn't after they have already been diagnosed with that condition... like duh!
Actually, why would we want to have employees at all... they're nothing but liabilities all the way down the line. A smart shop would hire two or three good managers and then use contractors for all the heavy lifting. When their backs go out so do they c/o the need for expensive benefits.
It's based on ethnicity.
Genetic distance metric may show clustering which could be identified as ethnic group, but they are not the same thing.
The practice of racial discrinination has always been based on apperance and heredity, not genetic sequences. So these are distinct issues.
I had a friend stationed in Iraq who smokes. I told him 6 months ago to stop smoking. He kept smoking and, sure enough, he's still in Iraq. Some people just never learn.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If you're gonna warn someone about conventional medicine, at least use some reputable field like surgery, instead of some quack field like psychiatry. The best they give for depression is "a chemical imbalance in the brain (seratonin)". This is equivalent to debugging a program, seeing the output is not what you think it should be (you not really having a good idea of what is should be), and then changing a few statements so the output pleases you. If your friend doesn't want to be drugged, recommend religion, yoga, or such positive spritual activities instead of pseudoscience.
And as a service to those who actually want to kill themselves and aren't just cutting their wrists for attention, here are some successful ways to shuffle off this mortal coil: nicotine poisoning, breathing hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, or hydrogen cyanide gas (all easy to make, check out your local college chem library), hanging (if you want the neck to snap, the drop should be calculated by Weight*Drop = 1260 ft/lbs, otherwise you'll go unconciously after a minute or so, and be dead by 15, but we wouldn't want someone to come and find you in those 14 minutes or so, would we?, and finally, if you're not a coward, stabbing though the heart.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Spoken like someone who knows jack and shit about mental illness, and/or a scientologist. If you are in complete denial that the human body occasionally goes chemically out of whack, I would hate to see your 'cure' for diabetes. "No ass hole, you can eat sugar, it is just in your head that you are going to get sick and die."
The simple fact of the mater is that our body IS a chemical machine that can be fucked with. Give someone MDMA and they WILL become happy and empathetic. Give someone vellum and they will be indifferent to almost anything. Your emotions are controlled by the chemistry of this machine. Now, are modern day psyche drugs crude at best? Absolutely, though that has less to do with medical abilities and more to do with long held denial that people could will away mental illness that retarded any true understand of the field for years. Wishing away a mental illness is roughly as effective as wishing away diabetes.
Most people are blatantly ignorant when it comes to mental illness. Hell, I was blatantly ignorant of it until I had to watch people I was close to go through it first hand. I don't get depressed. I can't even contemplate being sad for no reason. That said, this isn't true for all people. For some people, absolutely everything could be right in the world, recognize the absolutely nothing is wrong, and they could still wish themselves dead for reasons they don't know. No amount of reasoning or yoga can fix that because it is completely irrational to begin with and purely the result of a defect in their chemistry.
There is a difference between melodramatic people looking for attention and people who are clinically depressed. I personally hope that none of the later has to have you as a friend, as the last thing they need is one more stupid asshole telling them that it is all in their head and to stop being so melodramatic. That sort of worthless advice is what drives people to try one of the more effective methods of offing themselves that you suggest.
"Stupid" is not a recognized medical condition, but more of a behavior. If you make the statement that someone with Down's Syndrome cannot be a neurosurgeon, then I might agree with you, but your generalities are fairly meaningless.
-Tut
Health-Hack.com
For someone who thinks they have superior knowledge to me about problems of the brain, you make the huge mistake of confusing a disease such as diabetes, which is caused by lack of insulin, and some "diagnosis" of "depression", which is caused by "a chemical imbalance". If you'd ever spoken to a psychiatrist, you'd understand at once that it is their own fault the field has been retarded - they are unaware or choose not to use empirical evidence and instead pull diagnoses out of their asses. Zoloft may help people lead a happier, more productive life, but so will morphine. If someone has major problems dealing with people, by your logic that person has aspergers syndrome, something, which like depression, is "incurable", and instead of teaching social skills, various drugs and therapies are prescribed, costing tens of thousands.
Your, and the commonly presribed, idea that "mental illness" is a chronic disease in the same vein of diabetes is contrary to evidence that the mind can exert more control over body functions than simply thought and muscle control, witness studies documenting the effectiveness of prayer and positive thinking in greatly increasing survival rates of disease and cancer.
I do admit that depression is a real condition, but to call it a chronic disease necessitating lifelong treatment makes you far worse than a stupid asshole. If you take away your responsibility for, say, lung cancer caused by smoking, you simultaneously give up your control over prevention/curing. Show me some evidence for the chemical nature of depression, until then you're worse than an ignorant fool, you're an ignorant fool that thinks he knows something.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Are people medicated when they shouldn't be? Certainly. To assume that all medication is a waste until the problem can be conclusively pinpointed and treated is sticking your head in the sand. That sort of foolishness would dictate that you can't remove a tumor until you understand why it started growing. It certainly would be nice to have perfect knowledge, but barring perfect knowledge you need to do what you can.
I would be terribly surprised to learn that you have ever known someone with true clinical depression because you display clear ignorance in the severity of the problem. True clinical depression associated with say bi-polar disorder doesn't make someone anti-social. On the contrary, bi-polars tend to be extremely social. The problem is that they have a crippling and completely irrational depression. We are talking about a depression so deep and so black that they simply cease to function as humans. To make it worse, the depression is completely without a rational reason and the victim of it consciously realizes that there is no reason for him/her to feel that way that he does. Take the feeling that a normal might have if say their entire family was murdered, make it a permanent feeling, and finally make it so that there is no reason to feel that way because everything is okay. There isn't anything to teach. They rationally KNOW that everything is okay and can tell you so. That doesn't do anything to alleviate that feeling of a crippling depression that you can't even contemplate having.
Your problem is that your limited imagination can't contemplate that you could constantly have a feeling for no rational reason, and that alls you have to do is think it away. That is fine for someone with a perfectly normal and functional head like you or I. For someone where something is broken, even if we have only limited understanding as to what is broken, that isn't fine. While we do not understand depression fully, we do see correlations between those with depression and those without. People with lower levels of neural transmitters tend to have depression. Drugs generally work by raising those levels. The confusion lies in that we do not understand the full picture, nor do we even know if low neural transmitters are the problem, or if it is a symptom of the root cause. What we DO know is that for some people, altering these levels lets people who normally would be completely incapacitated with completely irrational depression are able to start to function again. The results, while far from perfect, are undeniable. There are people out there that have found a happy existence when they once were crippled.
Honestly, I think you are going to remain completely ignorant as to the severity and the irrationality of depression until you actually know someone with serious clinical depression. You seem to be mixing people you knew that had teenaged angst or who were just attention whores with clinical depression.
I assure you that I'm not pulling stuff out of my ass; I had to endure psychiatrists and paxil, risperdal, zolaft, and prozac from 12-17, and as a result I had a very foggy memory of that time, as well as some other problems.
Your description of depression, and the justification for drugs, sounds exactly like what some psychiatrist would say to explain it, as well as the false analogy of diabetes being comparable to "mental illness".
By your own words, "wishing away a mental illness", youv'e already taken the view that you're powerless to change your mind by thought, and must revert to drugs. Religion and yoga were suggested because they require less sheer willpower than simply thinking positively by providing an aid. Go get yourself involuntarily admitted to the psych ward of a local hospital, and see how much help the psychiatrist gives you in listening to you. I guarantee it'll jack squat.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
But then you only have to throw in a few biomedical coincidences... "African-Americans have higher incidences of high blood pressure, sickle-cell anemia, etc.". And it goes downhill from there.
Replace "African-Americans" with "people with specific genetic sequence markers at Cx54:1258 have higher incidence of high blood pressure", and if that is your only metric, and it happens that the preponderence (51:49? no. 2:1? 8:1?) of people with these markers are of African descent, well, you now have medically justified, genetic discrimination, at least as far as companies like BNSF are concerned.