Recently, President Bush signed GINA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, into law. GINA makes it illegal for employers or health insurers to discriminate based on genetics. Virtually the entire genetics community has lauds this legislation, yet few have written why its wrong that employers and services review objective facts to make decisions.

“It’s not fair…” but why?

Under what conditions would an employee benefit from a genetic test mandated by an employer? If an employee had a risk of illness, would the employer be obligated to provide preventive medicine? Would the employer be obligated to better fit employment to people based on tests?

Unfortunately, most employment doesn’t work this way. Our modern economy trains and treats our working and middle classes to be interchangeable automatons. Why invest in a disposable, mass-produced part?

“All people equal” —perhaps the most revered human curse in modern history.

So until we all work at Google, employers who proactively and responsibly invest in preventive medicine for their employees through genetic testing is not likely for the average person.

However, voluntary employee genetic testing can entirely appropriate for some specialized jobs. For example, when you are an astronaut assigned to critical mission in space, you had better not have a 90% chance of dying of a heart attack during the mission. Oh… I guess the scene where Vincent dies in space and the mission is aborted at the cost of decades and trillions… was cut.

Maybe if society impressed into Vincent’s mother that creating a life is subject to enormous social responsibility and is not a whimsical selfish accident, Vincent wouldn’t have suffered.

Notes: Gattaca.

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