Thread: US close to passing law banning genetic discrimination

From The Jersusalem Post


May 3, 2008 23:09 | Updated May 3, 2008 23:42
US close to passing law banning genetic discrimination
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON

US President George W. Bush is expected to soon sign into law legislation prohibiting health insurance companies from penalizing individuals based on genetic testing, a particular concern to Ashkenazi Jews, who sometimes carry certain deleterious DNA mutations.

After 13 years of effort, Congress this week sent the White House legislation forbidding insurers from using genetic information to set premiums or enrollment eligibility and employers from using genetic information in hiring, firing or promotion decisions.

The US House of Representatives voted 414-1 for the legislation on Thursday, with libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) the sole voice of opposition. Last week, it passed the Senate 95-0.

Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which had lobbied hard for the provision, welcomed the bill's passage.

"Since each one of us carries genetic mutations - which may or may not express themselves during our lifetimes in the form of a disease - this is good news for every American," Hadassah National President Nancy Falchuk said in a statement.

Hadassah made the issue a priority once medical research showed that Ashkenazi Jews frequently have genetic mutations predisposing them to certain forms of cancer.

Other Jewish groups have also backed the legislation.

"Genetic diseases do not discriminate, and neither should health insurance providers when determining what coverage to provide," said William Daroff, vice president for public policy for the United Jewish Communities. "This is victory for the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases that have affected the Jewish community for generations."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? ... 2FShowFull

Ron Paul was the only congressman to vote aganist the ban
Who knows why?

Originally Posted by Once_A_Democrat

Ron Paul was the only congressman to vote aganist the ban
Who knows why?

I don't know why congressman Paul voted against the ban. Perhaps because it shouldn't be up to the federal government who a company hires, fires or promotes and/or for what reasons?

the 1 lone vote Ron Paul , Why ?

Originally Posted by florgal

Originally Posted by Once_A_Democrat

Ron Paul was the only congressman to vote aganist the ban
Who knows why?

I don't know why congressman Paul voted against the ban. Perhaps because it shouldn't be up to the federal government who a company hires, fires or promotes and/or for what reasons?

The Federal Government already has outlaid many rules which employers must abide by in their hiring/firing, promotion, and other personnel policies (eg. civil rights act, EEOC, etc). It's not a matter of whether or not they shouldn't be told how to hire - they already ARE told as much.
To be honest, while Rep Paul's reasons undoubtedly will be very interesting, I personally, am disappointed in his decision not to support it.

There is no excuse for Ron Paul voting against this bill!

tencz57 wrote:

because he's the only that really understands the bill . There are Jews and there are Zionists . Guess which group rules our government ? the vote will give you the answer . The Zionist are demanding the "Pre existing Condition" clause is lifted for them !! Bushco will do anything for them .

I won't even bother to request that you provide evidence to substantiate such an outrageous claim because I know there isn't any.

Originally Posted by MW

There is no excuse for Ron Paul voting against this bill!

tencz57 wrote:

because he's the only that really understands the bill . There are Jews and there are Zionists . Guess which group rules our government ? the vote will give you the answer . The Zionist are demanding the "Pre existing Condition" clause is lifted for them !! Bushco will do anything for them .

I won't even bother to request that you provide evidence to substantiate such an outrageous claim because I know there isn't any.

I think there is pently of "Evidence" as you say . But what are you ticked about on my post ? The Jews or Zionists ? Their is a big difference in the two i believe . Outrageous claim ? Bush loves the Zionists , half the pentagon are Zionist supporting Israel . Chernoff is dual citizenship . What is it that our forefathers said about dual citizenship ?

Interesting-- Minnesota is making a database of all newborns DNA....for what purposes?

Article posted by Jean: National DNA database gets kickstart from feds
Tests could reveal facts 'making individual less useful to society'

National DNA database gets kickstart from feds
Tests could reveal facts 'making individual less useful to society'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: May 01, 2008
11:40 pm Eastern


By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

With virtually no fanfare, President Bush has signed into law a plan that orders the government to take no more than six months to set up a "national contingency plan" to screen newborns' DNA that would be put into use in case of a "public health emergency."

Further, the new law requires that the results of that DNA program, including "information … research, and data on newborn screening" shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and be made available on the Internet.

According to records of Congress, S.1858, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was approved in the Senate on Dec. 13, 2007, in the House on April 8 and signed by Bush on April 24, 2008.

"Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care. "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research."

She has objected extensively to plans in the state of Minnesota to provide state government the same option now handed to the federal government by Congress.

The bill, she said, strips "citizens of genetic privacy rights and DNA property rights. The bill also violates research ethics and the Nuremberg Code.

"The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA databanking and population-wide genetic research," she continued. "It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child's DNA for the purpose of genetic research.

"Already, in Minnesota, the state health department reports that 42,210 children of the 780,000 whose DNA is housed in the Minnesota 'DNA warehouse' have been subjected to genetic research without their parent's knowledge or consent," she said.

The federal plan sets up the coast-to-coast DNA collections, then sets up procedures and allocates money to do the screenings, then report the results to "physicians and families" as well as educate families about newborn screening.

"We now are considered guinea pigs, as opposed to human beings with rights," said Brase, warning such DNA databases could spark the next wave of demands for eugenics, the concept of improving the human race through the control of various inherited traits. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, advocated eugenics to cull people she considered unfit from the population.

In 1921, Sanger said eugenics is "the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems," and she later lamented "the ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all."

Such DNA collection programs are offered as screening requirements to detect treatable illnesses. Right now they vary state-to-state as to exactly what tests are done, but the Health Resources and Services Administration has requested a report that would "include a recommendation for a uniform panel of conditions."

"Fortunately," Dodd said when his planned was launched, "some newborn screening occurs in every state … This legislation will provide resources for states to expand their newborn screening programs."

So what's the big deal about looking into DNA to hunt for various disease possibilities?

Nothing, said Brase, if that's where the hunt would end.

However, she said, "researchers already are looking for genes related to violence, crime and different behaviors."

"This isn't just about diabetes, asthma and cancer," she said. "It's also about behavioral issues."

"In England they decided they should have doctors looking for problem children, and have those children reported, and their DNA taken in case they would become criminals," she said.

In fact, published reports in the UK note that senior police forensics experts believe genetic samples should be studied, because it may be possible to identify potential criminals as young as age 5.

There, Chris Davis of the National Primary Headteachers' Association warned the move could be seen "as a step towards a police state."

Brase said such efforts to study traits and gene factors and classify people would be just the beginning. What could happen through subsequent programs to address such conditions, she wondered.

"Not all research is great," she said. Such classifying of people could lead to "discrimination and prejudice … People can look at data about you and make assessments ultimately of who you are."

The Heartland Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening is one of the organizations that advocates more screening and research.

It proclaims in its vision statement a desire to see newborns screened for 200 conditions. It also forecasts "every student … with an individual program for education based on confidential interpretation of their family medical history, their brain imaging, their genetic predictors of best learning methods…"

Further, every individual should share information about "personal and family health histories" as well as "gene tests for recessive conditions and drug metabolism" with the "other parent of their future children."

Still further, it seeks "ecogenetic research that could improve health, lessen disability, and lower costs for sickness."

"They want to test every child for 200 conditions, take the child's history and a brain image, and genetics, and come up with a plan for that child," Brase said. "They want to learn their weaknesses and defects.

"Nobody including and especially the government should be allowed to create such extensive profiles," she said.

The next step is obvious: The government, with information about potential health weaknesses, could say to couples, "We don't want your expensive children," Brase said.

"I think people have forgotten about eugenics. The fact of the matter is that the eugenicists have not gone away. Newborn genetic testing is the entry into the 21st Century version of eugenics," she said.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has posted a position statement on the issue, noting that many good things can result from genetic testing.

However, it expressed two significant areas of concern:

"History shows that this information will sometimes be leaked or misused, regardless of who controls it. When private companies leak information and break people's confidence, they have often been exposed and punished, as people no longer buy their services or sue. In contrast, when government agencies do the same, the guilty bureaucrats have often been protected and rewarded instead of suffering meaningful consequences," the group said.

The AAPS said in order to do the best possible job of protecting privacy, anyone who has access to DNA data should be "individually liable in the event of unlawful disclosure of genetic testing information…"

The other area of concern is equally significant:

"Genetic testing could be used for purposes found immoral in the Hippocratic medical tradition. For example, a utilitarian use of testing, in this example also immoral, would be to test for conditions which would make an individual less useful to society for the purpose of killing that person, as has been done in some totalitarian systems, such as Nazi Germany. Likewise, the use of genetic testing in attempts to breed a super race would be immoral and unethical. In these examples, the utility of the person to the society is the deciding factor, a position antithetical to the Hippocratic tradition of primary responsibility to the individual patient rather than to an amorphous society or relativistic social policies," the group said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul was one of the few voices to warn of the dangers. Before the plan's approval, he said.

"I cannot support legislation, no matter how much I sympathize with the legislation’s stated goals, that exceed the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. Since S. 1858 violates the Constitution, and may have untended consequences that will weaken the American health care system and further erode medical privacy, I must oppose it," he said.

"S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States. …"

He also said as the federal government assumes more control over health care, medical privacy is coming under assault.

"Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children," he continued.

"In fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a 'public health' disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of 'emergency," he said.


www.worldnetdaily.com
Other related articles posted there too.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... c&p=678435

Further, the new law requires that the results of that DNA program, including "information … research, and data on newborn screening" shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and be made available on the Internet.

Time to stop having birth in the hospitals and take it all back home. To hell with this facist government. They just gotta stick their noses in everything.

tencz57 wrote:

I think there is pently of "Evidence" as you say . But what are you ticked about on my post ?

Nothing personal, tencz57. I can tend to get a little overly passionate on occasion. Perhaps such a comment, when evidence is lacking or impossible to obtain, should be preceded by "in my opinion." Just a suggestion.......