[Infowarrior] - President Calls for Genetic Privacy Bill

[Richard Forno]

January 18, 2007
President Calls for Genetic Privacy Bill
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/18privacy.html?pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 ‹ President Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to pass
long-stalled legislation to safeguard genetic privacy, a measure experts say
would encourage millions of Americans to undergo testing that could lead to
prevention and treatment of cancer and other diseases.

³If a person is willing to share his or her genetic information, it is
important that that information not be exploited in improper ways,² Mr. Bush
said at the National Institutes of Health. ³And Congress can pass good
legislation to prevent that from happening.² He added, ³We want medical
research to go forward without an individual fearing personal
discrimination.²

For years, scientists and patients¹ advocates have pushed for legislation
barring employers and insurance companies from discriminating based on the
results of genetic tests. A so-called genetic discrimination bill passed the
Senate unanimously in 2003, but died in the House.

The bill was reintroduced in the House this week. With Congress now under
Democratic control, the bill¹s backers are optimistic . They include Dr.
Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute
at the health institutes, who participated in a roundtable discussion with
Mr. Bush on Wednesday.

Dr. Collins said Mr. Bush¹s statement, along with the possibility of
Congressional action, ³gives us renewed hope that all Americans will finally
receive the protections they need to benefit from gene-based medicine.²