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IBM Vows Not to Genetically Discriminate
An anonymous reader writes "Today the New York Times is reporting that IBM announced the addition of genetic makeup (Genetic Registration Required) to its non-discrimination policy. It appears that IBM is the first company worldwide to do this. With congress considering genetic privacy legislation, and with projects like the National Geographic Genographic Project, are we nearing the time when we all need to worry about our genetic privacy?"
addition of genetic makeup (Genetic Registration Required) to its non-discrimination policy
Until the company goes down the crapper because all the other companies are making billions by having lower health care costs and hiring people that correctly match their genetic makeup (yeah 3005 stuff).
The companies that should institute such a policy are the Aetna's, KaiserPermanente's, and MetLife's of the world. However, that would not be wise, given the business models of said companies.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
More likely, "Sorry, but you had a genetic predisposition for carpal tunnel syndrome which makes it a pre-existing condition that our health care plan will not fund."
steampunk web design
With Huntington's disease ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntingtons_disease ) in the family, this has been one of my worries. Who would insure us, since we can be proven to have a catastrophic illness that we cannot hope to pay for the care of.
As an example, my mom's nursing home costs more than her salary from when she was working. We need the help of big insurance, but they don't want to cover us. And if I get tested they will want to withold both life and health insurance, since I would be proven to be a poor risk.
I can only hope that other companies follow IBM's lead. We need to have genetic privacy legislation.
meh
The time is coming when people will alter themselves or their kids. They are actually working on super drugs to increase brain power, muscle power etc. Like it or not, this is coming. Genetic research is coming along too. So... in 20 years or so, if it will give your kid a leg up (or allow him/her) to keep up, will you do it? If not, what happens? A two-tier society. The enhanced and unenhanced. Who will companies prefer to hire? Someone with enhancements to help them work longer and be more effective - or a standard human. Who will be able to afford the treatments? What will happen to those that can't? What will become of those that choose not to do it?
The axiom of science is that if it can be done, it will be done. This declaration by IBM may be early, but in time it may be required.
Ok: 1) Referring to the movie Gattica? Come on, can't we do better. How about not refer to a movie, or at least not one so lame.
2) While it is great IBM does this now. Two things to note: a) they can always change this policy b) imagine this scenario - the gov't allows genetic testing, and thusly discrimination - now it becomes an insurance companies policy "you want insurance, it is twice as expensive w/o a genetic test"...IBM may be forced to change their policy to avoid paying twice as much in insurance costs.
I am happy IBM is doing this and hopefully it will push Congress to pass anti-genetic discrimination laws (which they should). In the end, what Congress does will make the difference.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Healthcare costs are a huge expense for employers, and this is good news for tons of workers -- genetic markers that indicate higher risk for disease, and therefore higher healthcare expenses for employers, will not be a factor in hiring/promotion practices.
However, this doesn't give someone with bad genetics a free ride. If your genetics are expressed in a negative way that could be detrimental to your performance, then you can be discriminated against. It's only the alleles, not the expression, that won't be discriminated against.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If it's 100% correlation, then they don't hire you because you ARE a sociopath, not because you're predisposed to sociopathy.
This is a brave stance, but they will end up having to weasel out of it, otherwise they will end up hovering up the shallow end of the gene pool
There are some interesting sides to this though, as it might be more cost-effective to hire people who tend to die early, as long as they have no sick leave before hand. It would certainly save on pensions/ superannuation.
Genetic health screening is already done to an extent when doctors ask you about illnesses in the family, what age did your relatives die, have you got any chronic health problems. Genetic screening will come in gradually as an extension to this, and I think companies will find themselves forced to use it by the market.
People with a positive genetic test for something long and expensive like MS, mental health problems, or early Alzheimers would be pretty much unemployable, even before they developed the clinical signs of the disease. As all tests are fallible, some of them would not go on to develop the disease anyway. These sort of problems will need legislation to protect people from the worst excesses of such testing, but I don't see how we are going to stop it.
As the developing world catches us up, and plenty of companies with no compunction about using such tests, I would be surprised if IBM is still saying the same thing in 20 years time.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the only difference between a company that discriminates based on that (like in Gattaca) and one that doesn't (every company today) the fact that one had that little blood analysis machine at the door and the rest don't?
I thought the point of insurance was to spread risk. Since noody can afford the treatment for certain catastrophic illnesses, the idea is to put everyone in a pool to share the risk. If insurers are allowed to cherry pick, why bother even having insurance, other than for accidental trauma?
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
... it's a really slipery situation now isn't it.
... well, more more money than I care to think about on insurance, and I've never used a dime of benefit to my recollection. Last time I did anything medical was when I was exiting military service, after that, I've managed to get by on bandaids(tm) and off-the-shelf remedies.... and even those are used with some rarity. (I did cut my finger last night though...so there's a bandaid(tm) on my finger now) But the point of my rambling is this: while we (USA people) don't really have an effective social medical system, competitive insurance is as close as we'll come I think. So I don't mind paying for health insurance even if I never utilize the benefits -- I recognize that I might one day and that there are people who need it now.
But I have to wonder, though, if at the same time we arrive at a notion of "genetic health" and such how far off we will be from also being able to heal or correct such problems on a permanant basis? Would we be able to, then, repair everything from crooked teeth to a crooked spine?
And if we could make such corrections, would descrimination be an issue? I suppose the very notion of a cure for genetic problem disposes of the idea of descrimination doesn't it... So far, I feel pretty lucky... my problems are somewhat mild -- one ear slightly (though barely noticably) higher than the other and crowded teeth... other than that, I'm a pretty healthy guy... as far as I know. Then again, my next genetic profile might reveal something more devastating right?
Let's make sure that the insurance game remains as it is -- a gamble for the industry. After all, as gambling goes, they win more often than not. But the more they remove uncertainty from their game, the less valuable their services are -- if only "healthy" people can get insurance, then nobody needs it! Just build a large enough interest-bearing investment portfolio and never pay another premium again! In my life, I've probably paid
As an example, my mom's nursing home costs more than her salary from when she was working. We need the help of big insurance, but they don't want to cover us. And if I get tested they will want to withold both life and health insurance, since I would be proven to be a poor risk.
My deepest sympathies go out to you and your family for this misfortune, but at the same time I would be remiss if I didn't point out that that's pretty much the point of insurance in a capitalist society - it's essentially a bet, and nobody who doesn't have a burning desire to lose money is going to bet on somebody with this disease.
Remember, the topic of whether or not the citizenry should collectively bear the costs of caring for someone with this catastrophic illness is a different debate. If we work under the assumption of insurance companies operating within a capitalist framework, then it's just business. People start insurance businesses to make money by offering you a bet that you will get sick disproportionate to their estimate of the actual odds of that happening. Under normal circumstances, it's designed to cover accidents and acts of god, not things they can see coming a mile away - and if they can see it coming a mile away, then the price for their service goes up in proportion to the estimated cost of treating your ailment (which is why nobody except smokers really complains when their insurance company asks them whether or not they use tobacco).
Taking out policies when they know them to be losing bets will lose the insurance company money, and drives up prices for everybody (usually disproportionately to the loss they've taken to boot - people generally see a loss of $5 as a good opportunity to jack up the price $6), which means the citizenry is effectively collectively paying for that health insurance anyway.
Asking companies to insure someone whom they know will have this disease in the future is the same as going up to a doctor and asking him to operate for free. We can debate about whether or not the state should get involved and operate health care as a collective, but under a capitalist framework that policy, while pleasant-sounding, is at its core unfair (after all, let us be honest here: if you ran an insurance company, you wouldn't want to have an estimate of your customers' total cost of care that is orders of magnitude more accurate than the one you currently have?)
BUT, being a sociopath provides you with the perfect skill set for a career in marketing!
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
That is being a bit sensationalistic and innacruate. IBM Polish subsidiaries supplied equipment to the Nazis, who then used it to track Jews (amoung other things... the equipment could have been used to track anything). And lets remember that the people working for the subsidiaries in Poland were given "an offer they couldn't refuse". (i.e. there is no question that they and their families would have been tortured and killed if they refused to supply the Nazis with what they wanted).
To illustrate the double standard, China uses Linux based equipment to run it's police state. No-one is saying that Linus Torvolds is responsible for China oppression. (and yes, Linus Torvolds has the power to explicitly forbid the use by specific governments by changing the licence... which he has chosen not to do. And he most certainly knows that China uses Linux to facilitate oppressive policies.) The only difference is that no open-source geeks and their families are going to be tortured and killed if Linus forbid the use of Linux by China... which makes Linus far more responsible than IBM.
Once again, people blaming someone else for the oppressive policies of governments. No-one will dare blame genocide or oppression commited by governments ON GOVERNMENTS... because most people are in love with big oppressive governments in some form or another.
Indeed, uses that have already started. Women with a particular BRCA-1 marker have an 80% chance of developing breast cancer before age 65. Assuming a cheap test, most women should probably be tested. Even with a more expensive test, women with a family history should probably be tested. Positive test results may indicate that differences in health monitoring and/or treatment are appropriate. It seems likely that as tests for genetic markers become cheap, they will be incorporated along with other mandatory blood tests performed on newborns -- eg, PKU screening.
I'm beginning to think that it's a national disgrace that the US will be spending energy on the question "How do we keep this technology from being used to deny people health care?" while the rest of the industrialized countries get to ask "How can we use this technology to provide cost-effective health care?"