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?"

Comments

G.A.T.T.A.C.A?

[alokeb]

The movie coming to reality? Hopefully not.

genetic discrimination may bring legislation

[yagu]

Disclaimer: I am genetically an idiot.

Well, if it's really true and IBM is truly dedicated to a non-discriminatory genetic policy, this could be a good thing. A couple of questions:

• what makes a non-discriminatory policy (obviously hiring is one)? Do people of certain genetic "deficiencies" have the same health benefits? At the same cost?
• what happens if IBM becomes the only company that commits to this, and a stampede of genetic malware knocks at their door only? Do they modify their policies? (it could become VERY expensive for them should they remain the only corporation committed to this policy.)
• what and how are "defectives" (God! I hate this topic... very loaded) detected? Are they tested?, Is it mandatory?

Much good can, will (and has) come from genetic understanding and it's important to remember what it brings. But from the article, there is a cautionary example (from the article):

In a handful of publicly disclosed cases, genetic data has been used without workers' knowledge.

This is a topic long sneaking up on current consciousness and conscience and at some point needs to be stared down. I'm not a socialist, but if we start seeing a society free to not hire, not talk to, not help, etc., simply because of some percieved defect in their genetic makeup, I'd support some public policy not allowing this.

Re:what's the point of insurance then?

[Pichu0102]

Insurance companies pick the lowest risk people so they get the insurance payments without having to pay for health bills. Is it ethically right? Probably not. Is it profitable? Hell yes it is.
In the end, profit overcomes ethics.

Re:what's the point of insurance then?

[Godeke]

As someone who consults on the software side for insurance companies I can tell you why "spreading risk" is diminishing. The original intent was to take the "pool" of insureds and insure everyone based on the risks present in the pool. However, if I'm selling insurance based on the "pool" price and my competitor becomes selective (say, not insuring those who smoke) the competitor's pool risk rate is lower than mine and he can either sell at the same price and make more profits or he can sell lower.

Now, the real profit in insurance is in the long term investments that the premiums are placed in, so they will sell at a lower price to gain more premium dollars to invest. (Free market selection by the consumer ensures the consumer will look to the lower cost options available.) We (the consumers) have accepted the fact that smokers and drinkers are going to be harder to insure. These are "lifestyle" choices. Likewise, I pay extra for my rock climbing: that fall outside the "norm". (I had to admit to it though because otherwise if I fell to my death they would have cause to not pay on my life insurance). People don't seem to mind dividing the risk pool on items that are *within the control* of the insured.

What has become offensive to even some *within* the insurance industry is the idea of dividing the risk pool on "uncontrolled" factors. There is a reason why they ask about your family history of disease: it is to partition on your genetic probability for specific diseases. Where the gene testing takes things further is simply increasing the accuracy of those risk assessments and adding new assessments that were impossible before.

Unfortunately, without state run insurance or strong regulations you end up with a competitive environment that selects for those companies that are "managing the risk pool" they accept. Fair it isn't (if your idea of insurance was based on the risk pool spreading costs) but it is the profitable way to go. I have written neural nets that take the risk pool and assess a new application based on the prior risks that were insured by the company. Some interesting trends came out of doing so: you end up doing ethnic discrimination as it turns out there are strong links between race and risk rates for some diseases. Eventually the idea of risk pools will be fully replaced with personal risk rates assuming no regulation to prevent it. (This is already true in the corporate insurance world where there are "uninsurable" companies and no law requires they be insurable for some types of insurance).

Re:Huh?

[jafac]

The solution?
Nationalize the Health Insurance Industry.

If they insure everybody, then there is no such thing as a preexisting condition.