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Genetic Testing

... What is genetic testing? Genetic testing is widely used by the modern medicine to find out whether the person has a genetic precondition of disease or whether he is likely to get such a disease. Genetic issues are often related to the themes of bioethics, human decision making and moral and legal issues. Genetic issues are often discussed in relation to ethical aspects, which seem to be mutually contradictory. Is society justified in insisting that people submit to genetic screening, counseling of prenatal diagnosis? Are organizations justified in submitting their employees to genetic testing without informing them? Let’s dwell on the subject and answer these questions, basing on BNSP experience in genetic testing issue.

First of all, let’s try to understand whether the people should be submitted to genetic screening, counseling or prenatal diagnosis. The supporters of genetic screening adduce several arguments:

- Prenatal genetic screening will be able to find out the children with genetic defects

- The people will be required for a genetic testing and will know whether they have any genetic disease. In case the genetic screening will not be obligatory, various genetic diseases will continue to be passed from one generation to the other.

Genetic testing as well as use of information received in result of genetic testing is permitted to ensure “workplace safety and health and to preserve research opportunities” (Genetics Legislation, n.p.). However, it is difficult to imagine that “genetic testing can be used in a negative way” (Eustice, n.p.).

John Wiebelhaus, a track maintenance foreman hired by Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad (BNSF). Harry Zanville is the attorney of the union of railworkers in BNSF. John Wiebelhaus and Harry Zanville have accused the company of covert genetic testing. The company required its employees to take a medical examination. However, in March 2000, “BNSF included in this examination a genetic factor only for some employees who claim work-related carpal tunnel syndrome.” (BNSF News release, February 12, 2001)

According to accusation, “125 workers recently gave blood samples and at least 18 were unknowingly and without consent subjected to genetic testing” (Eustice, n.p.). John Wiebelhaus and Harry Zanville consider that the company “is trying to wiggle out of paying millions of dollars for medical bills and disability to workers who develop carpal tunnel syndrome, using blood tests to prove predisposition to the disease” (Eustice, n.p.).

The representatives of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWE) filed the accusation on February 9 against Athena Diagnostics in Sioux City, Iowa and BNSW. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) joined them a bit later.

On February 12 Mark C. Bennett agreed for a temporary restraining order according to which BNSF “agreed to halt its coercive genetic testing program” (VHL Family Alliance webpage, n.p.). A month later, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has settled the first court action concerning the workplace genetic testing issue under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission insisted on ending genetic testing of “employees who filed claims for work-related injuries based on carpal tunnel syndrome” (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.p.). According to Commission Chairwoman Ida L. Castro, the “EEOC sought the preliminary injunction to prevent irreparable harm to employees who faced the impossible choice of potentially losing their jobs or revealing their genetic makeup” (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.p.). EEOC’s action allows “Burlington Northern employees subjected to genetic testing to continue to work free of retaliation and future invasions of privacy in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act”. ...

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