In an interesting new development, details of the first ever
employment law case involving genetic
discrimination have been made public in the US.
The case has been brought under the Genetic Information
Non-Discrimination Act 2008 (GINA), which was passed by the US
Senate in May 2008 and came into force in November 2009. The Act is
designed to prevent employers from using information regarding the
genetic susceptibility of an individual to debilitating or
life-threatening diseases to decide who to recruit, promote or
dismiss.
The groundbreaking case was brought by Pamela Fink against her
former employer MXenergy, a utilities company headquartered in
Stamford, Connecticut. After both her sisters developed breast
cancer and she herself tested positive for mutations in her BRCA2
gene, which is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer,
Ms Fink elected to have a double mastectomy.
