1. The job interview of the future?
Genetic Testing
The job interview of the future?

2. EEOC vs. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad
-Feb 9, 2001 the EEOC filed it’s first action challenging genetic testing
-Genetically tested employees without knowledge or consent for Chromosome 17 which is claimed to predict carpal tunnel.

3. EEOC vs. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad
-EEOC’s statement:
"The Commission takes the position that basing employment decisions on genetic testing violates the ADA. In particular, employers may only require employees to submit to any medical examination if those examinations are job related and consistent with business necessity. Any test which purports to predict future disabilities, whether or not it is accurate, is unlikely to be relevant to the employee's present ability to perform his or her job."

4. OUTCOME
While BNSF denies that it violated the ADA or engaged in any form of workplace discrimination, it agreed to attempt to conciliate the charges with the EEOC through voluntary mediation.
BNSF has agreed it will not use genetic tests in required medical examinations of its employees in the future
In addition, BNSF has agreed to pay up to a total of $2.2 million to the employees who were directed to appear for the medical examination for claims related to the genetic tests

5. Genetic testing defined
Testing employees or job applicants to exclude ‘high risk’ individuals from the workforce. This may be via susceptibility screening, to identify whether an individual who is currently symptomatic has a gene or genes that increase the risk of developing a disorder as a result of the workplace environment. And may be used to identify genes or disorders that are unrelated to the workplace—but which render the individual undesirable to the employer.

6. What do you think Genetic Testing can be used to detect?

7. Genetic Tests can be used to:
-Confirm a suspected diagnosis
-Predict the possibility of future illnesses
-Detect the presence of a carrier state in unaffected individuals
-whose children may be at risk
-Predict response to therapy
-Make diagnosis of an individual embryo before implantation using chorionic villus sampling (CVS), or amniocentesis.
 -Most newborns in industrialized countries are tested at birth for a few genetic disorders that require immediate treatment
 -Genetic tests may be carried out on children to confirm a diagnosis, but generally not to predict adult-onset disorders

8. Available Tests
-About 900 genetic tests are now offered by diagnostic laboratories (see more information on the specifics).
-Some genetic tests look at whether the number of chromosomes is:
-Correct or whether there is any evidence of a chromosome rearrangement
ex: detecting Down syndrome (an extra chromosome 21).
-Some look for specific chromosomes:
-ex. Chromosome 17 deletion to detect for carpal tunnel

9. What will happen to genetic testing over the next decade?
-It is likely that the major genetic factors involved in susceptibility to common diseases like diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer and mental illness will be uncovered in the course of the next 5 to 7 years.
-For many of these conditions, altering diet, lifestyle, or medical surveillance could be beneficial for high-risk individuals.

10. More about the Future
-That will open the door to wider availability of genetic tests to identify individual predispositions to future illness, potentially for virtually anyone.
-For this paradigm to succeed, it will also be essential that predictive genetic information is used to benefit individuals, rather than to injure them by discriminatory misuse.

11. The number of tests are growing
-but most of these are currently applied only in families where there is a strong history of the disorder.
 (For instance, BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing are only offered to individuals with a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer.)
But in the next few years
-it is expected that a much longer list of susceptibility tests will become available, and may be offered to anyone interested in the information, regardless of family history.

12. Genetic Testing: Out of Control
Now: Need to have a medical history
Future: Access to anyone who wants to know
Privacy issues
Okay in the medical context
Need consent

13. Conclusion
Genetic testing used in the hiring and retaining process is discrimination.
How would you feel if your “bad” genes kept you from getting a job?