Genetic testing bill signed into law

President George W. Bush signed legislation in May designed to protect workers from losing their jobs or being denied health insurance based on DNA testing results that reveal their susceptibility to certain health conditions.

The “Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act” amends existing federal civil rights and employment laws to prohibit employers from firing, refusing to hire or otherwise discriminating against employees based on genetic information.

It also bans insurers from requiring genetic testing or using genetic information for underwriting or adjusting premiums.

After being approved in the Senate by a 95-0 vote in April, the House of Representatives passed the measure with a 414-1 voice vote.

The bill “protects our citizens from having genetic information misused, and this bill does so without undermining the basic premise of the insurance industry,” Bush said at a signing ceremony on Wednesday.

Bush praised Congress for the bill’s passage – making particular note of the role Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman Edward M. Kennedy, a co-sponsor of the bill, played in getting it passed.

Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May.

“Senator Ted Kennedy … has worked for over a decade to get this piece of legislation to a President’s desk,” Bush said.

Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said Kennedy hailed the signing of the bill he calls “the first civil rights law of the century of the life sciences.”

“This bipartisan legislation continues Senator Kennedy’s ongoing commitment to a fairer and more just America, by barring discrimination on the basis of an individual’s DNA code, just as the nation has previously prohibited discrimination based on race, gender or national origin,” Wagoner said.