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In last week’s Sunday New York Times, a prominent medical researcher asserts that the failure of Congress to pass the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act (GINA) could hamper advances in preventative medicine.
From the article, entitled “Insurance Fears Lead Many to Shun DNA Tests”:
But thousands of people accustomed to a health insurance system in which known risks carry financial penalties are drawing their own conclusions about how a genetic predisposition to disease is likely to be regarded.
As a result, the ability to more effectively prevent and treat genetic disease is faltering even as the means to identify risks people are born with are improving.
“It’s pretty clear that the public is afraid of taking advantage of genetic testing,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health . “If that continues, the future of medicine that we would all like to see happen stands the chance of being dead on arrival.”
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