In the mid-1980s only a handful of companies were using genetic tests. By 1996, some 5 percent of corporations in the USA were examining the genes of employees. It is believed that it will soon be possible to calaculate an individual's susceptibility to common disorders such as diabetes, ischaemic heart diseases, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis leading to further pressures from employers and insurance companies.
2. Racial groups who are concerned that they seem to have rather a large number of genetic diseases need not be concerned unless their average lifespan is less than that of other races due to genetic disease. Currently this is not known to be the case.
It is easier to correctly associate genes with diseases in an isolated or intact and closely related racial group. This makes groups such as the Icelanders, Jews and Amish highly desirable medical research subjects. When the group itself believes in supporting medical research, as is the case with the Jews, it is to be expected that more should become known about their genetically determined diseases first.
3. In the USA, notably in the future and following pressure from the insurance industry, people may lose their jobs following genetic tests indicating a predisposition to illness from which their ancestors may have suffered. Although people with a defective gene may never show symptoms of illness, their employment may be terminated as a preventive measure. Their career prospects may be destroyed.
2. Everyone is a mutant. We all carry dozens of scrambled genes.
3. Medical experts agree that genes do not determine our health, talents, or behavioural traits and that their contribution is as as relevant as a range of environmental factors. Safety risks can justify testing pilots for colour blindness, but the cases when predisposition to certain diseases should be relevant for an employer are extremely rare.