Q1. Do you agree with the author’s view that genetic testing in the workplace should be banned? Why or why not?
Q2. Are your genetic fingerprints considered personal or personnel property? Cite relevant theories/examples to support your arguments.
Q3. In your opinion, should genetic testing be permitted in the workplace in
3 comments:
QUESTION 1
Do you agree with the author’s view that genetic testing in the workplace should be banned?
Yes. We agree with the author view that genetic testing in the workplace should be banned. We agree with the author because there have a serious danger in the use of genetic screening at workplace.
First, genetic testing never worked. Attempts in the 1960s to introduce workplace genetic screening were soundly rejected because occupational and environmental factors were a far more productive focus of preventive action.
Secondly, genetic testing also still doesn’t work. Efforts over 30 years to push gene screens for sensitivity to the potent workplace asthma cause TDI and other substances have failed.
Thirdly, genetic testing misses the point. Genetic screening tended to give some often dubious that protection from one risk. Many targeted substances including benzene, beryllium, lead and cadmium had many more and more serious risks for the entire workplace that would have been a better focus for preventive efforts.
Besides that, genetic testing is a discriminatory. The markets chosen were often linked to race, sickle cell, Tay Sachs, Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency or gender, which could have led to something uncomfortably close to workplace eugenics.
The GeneWatch report warns that efforts to winnow out the weak or susceptible are fundamentally flawed. The report says, “Genetic tests could result in many and perhaps hundreds or workers being excluded to prevent one case of a workplace related disease. The majority of those excluded would suffer the ill-efforts of unemployment on their health and finances even though they might not actually belong to a higher risk group. The report argues:
• There are more effective ways of improving health. For example meeting legal duties and ensuring risk are “eliminated, reduced, or at the every least, effectively controlled”
• The imbalance of power between employer and employees makes it difficult to ensure that the employee is giving voluntary consent to a genetic test. Job applicant could face discrimination and existing workers might not be able to walk away from a high risk job but could have the test used against them if they didn’t leave the job and went on to develop an occupational disease.
• A genetic test could have wider implications for blood relatives who might have a similar genetic trait or when applying for other jobs or for insurance.
• The use of genetic test in unethical excluding people from employment on the basis of their genetic makeup would constitute a violation of their fundamental human risk.
• There is potential for discrimination. This test are complex and open to misinterpretation, can lead to “false positive” result and lead to a generally unemployable “genetic underclass”.
For those with something to gain the plethora of firms flogging testing kits for example, or the employers looking for a cut-price alternative to safe work. It seems unethical at best that 21st century workplace, where there is the capability to cheaply obtain a person’s genetic fingerprint, can argue they can’t make their workplaces safe.
QUESTION 2
Are your genetic fingerprints considered personal or personnel property?
We agree that a genetic fingerprint is considered personal. We say that because from GeneWatch argues that our genetic fingerprints is personal and not personnel information. This argument appears to be winning in the United States too where despite the support of a powerful business and biotech lobby, genetic screening’s day could be numbered.
In October 2003 the U.S. Senate voted by overwhelming majority to approve legislation that would prohibit companies from using genetic test results to make employment decisions, deny health coverage or raise insurance premiums.
The measure, which will now move forward for consideration by the House of Representatives, would bar insurers from requiring genetic tests, from obtaining test results and from sing the results of tests to increase insurance premiums or deny coverage.
Employers would be barred from seeking most genetic information and using any such information to influence hiring or promotion decisions. Employers could, however require testing to monitor potential ill effects from workplace exposure to hazardous substances. And disability and worker’s advocates warn that the proposed U.S law has employer-friendly loopholes and it would not, for example rule out gene tests in occupational disease compensation cases, so the gene testers could still have a route into the workplace.
A prohibition should be included explicitly on the protection of worker’s personal data. Genetic fingerprints would distract attention from efforts to remedy occupational hazards “in particular in the chemical field” and it could “introduce discrimination among workers according to certain genetic characteristics
QUESTION 3
In your opinion, should genetic testing be permitted in the workplace in Malaysia?
From our opinion, genetic testing should not be permitted in the workplace in Malaysia. The genetic testers face legal pitfalls. Where tests have been used, employers have sometimes found themselves on the wrong side of the law. In 2002, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad that its use of secret genetic testing of some employees violated federal law.
Genetic tests cannot accurately predict which workers will suffer future disability or illness. Many false test results are likely. Despite their poor predictive value, many employers wish to use genetic test results and many research projects are seeking to identify people who are “genetically susceptible” to workplace hazards.
There is no scientific evidence to substance a relationship between unexpressed genetic factors and an individual’s ability to perform his or her job. Thus, most expert groups recommend prohibiting use of genetic testing and access to genetic information in the workplace.
If genetic tests were used in Malaysia, large numbers of people would need to be excluded from employment to try to prevent a single case of workplace illness. Workplace hazards affect everyone not just people with bad genes. So the remaining workers would still be at risk.
The focus in workplace health and safety needs to be on hazards removal, not mathematical calculation of risk based on genetic testing. And as an Islamic country, the genetic tests cannot be permitted in the workplace in Malaysia.
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