Congress passes bill to ban discrimination based on individuals' genetic makeup.

摘要

Under GINA, health insurers will be barred from rejecting coverage or raising premiums for healthy individuals based on personal or familial genetic predispositions to diseases such as cancer or diabetes. Employers also cannot discriminate based on such predispositions. Several cases of genetic bias by employers have been documented in the past. When Slaughter reintroduced GINA in 2007, she noted that throughout the 1970s, many blacks were denied jobs, educational opportunities, and insurance based on their carrier status for sickle cell anemia. More recently, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif, and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad performed genetic tests on employees without their knowledge or consent.