Okay boys, moral dilemma #51784 time.
From http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GENETIC_DISCRIMINATION?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT on the topic of HR493.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress sent President Bush a bill Thursday forbidding employers and insurance companies from using genetic tests showing people are at risk of developing cancer, heart disease or other ailments to reject their job applications, promotions or health care coverage, or in setting premiums.

Bush was expected soon to sign the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which lawmakers and advocates called "the first major civil rights act of the 21st century." Federal law already bans discrimination by race and gender.

...

The House voted 414-1 for the legislation Thursday, a week after it passed the Senate on a 95-0 vote. The only member of Congress to vote against the bill was Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.

So why do I flag this?
Well, it raised a question. Say you have iron poor blood, or poor eyesight. Both genetic. Thanks to them, these preclude you from a career as, for a start, a fighter pilot.
VO2max (basically your lung capacity) is often measured to determine potential in athletes - this is also largely genetic.
Diseases like Cystic Fibrosis are gentic - and significantly shorten life - not too many people at the age of 18 would find it easy to land a job if they had to tell their employer "oh, hey, it's not that I'm unloyal or anything, but I'll probably only be in the job for two years max".

Granted, it doesn't affect us as this is a US law, though there'll always be some trickle down when the worlds superpower of population 300 million does anything.

Focus: Is this a positive law, or political correctness gone too far?

(Note: I do have an opinion on this, though I think a few would be surprised which side I take).

perfectly valid law imo.

fighter pilot example isn't great because those genetic defects would prevent him/her from performing their job properly. also, if the air force knowingly allowed you to fly with poor eye sight or something and you ended up getting yourself killed then that would almost be negligence, wouldn't it?

imo, unless a medical condition prevents you from performing the functions and requirements of a job then it should be illegal to discriminate on those grounds. using someone's potential for medical conditions to discriminate should be illegal just as discriminating against someone because of their race is illegal. they're both genetic issues, aren't they?

The difference between us and the US is that in America companies generally pay for your health insurance. Therefore by not employing people with a genetic disposition to getting cancer or heart disease they see this as a way of saving money by cutting down their chances of having to pay for the treatment of employees who develop these diseases.

I don't see it as anything to do with job function.

And IMO it is wrong. Just because you have a genetic predisposition to developing a condition doesn't mean it is going to happen. Just that there is a higher chance then the norm. There is a good movie about this called Gattaca.



last edited by ara at 10:27:21 02/May/08

I guess I'm torn here, because on one hand President Bush is telling employers how to run their businesses, on the other hand this could prevent a Gattaca situation.

the eye sight thing isn't really valid anyway. because the air force lets pilots fly if they've had corrective surgery (lasik, etc) to give them 20/20 vision.

a physical test is a far better than genetic markers ever will be for physical attributes.

also anyone whos seen gattaca would know they had the exact same law in place in their version of the future. genetic anti-discrimination laws, yet everyone ignored them.

There are laws to prevent discrimination based on illness or disability in Australia.

They are largely ignored. 6 months after I was diagnosed I was severley discriminated against and treated ridiculously unfairly by my employer because they wanted to get a Government subsidy for empying a 'disabled person'. I was a loyal employee for four years and loved my job, still had hundreds of sick hours banked.

I now run my own business. Nobody is ever going to f*** with me like that again.

hog what is your disability ?

d0mino: I was diagnosed with MS a year and a half ago.

MS is not genetic.

And as usual, Ron Paul isn't even looking at the issue at hand, he's just wanting to stop the government from getting involved in every single thing that comes to light.

Well that's a very sensible position to take. It's not the government's job to teach Americans how to treat each other with respect, and in fact it's a burden on the tax payer, and it's another reason for some government jerkoff who couldn't get a real job to rock up at your work and tell you how it is. If a company wants to f*** employees over and develop a bad reputation for themselves, that's their problem. Ideally such a company would be told off by it's customers.

What the politicians need to do is make it easier for citizens to stick it to a company when they've been a f***hole. Legislation and taking things down the courtroom route is a poor answer, and has been proven to be an ineffective one, but one that satisfies voters who don't really like to think for themselves, and need a judge to tell them how to live.

MS is not genetic.

Hi f***head, you really don't know your arse from your elbow. The most mundan googling of "MS genetic" yields on the results page as the first hit:

The cause of MS remains unknown, but "MS likely occurs as a result of some combination of both environmental and genetic factors".

Do you possibly reckon I might have spent a million hours or so researching MS after I was diagnosed with it?

Just because you really pissed me off Raven:

"If it's true that sunlight is protective and/or vitamin D is protective, then there's one group of people who ought to think seriously about it, and that is young parents who have MS," noted Mack. "Because the likelihood that a child of a parent with MS will go on to get MS is 3 or 4 percent. Which is many, many times the likelihood that the average person could get MS."

Link

Do you possibly reckon I might have spent a million hours or so researching MS after I was diagnosed with it?

Maybe several hours but I srsly doubt a million.

Raven: If you are going to make a statement like "MS is not genetic", you should refer to some supporting evidence to prevent looking like a retart.

last edited by infi at 13:15:23 02/May/08

easy up big fella. Raven's statement isn't totally incorrect. Your genetic makeup is responsible for everything about you. If your parent(s) have MS, your likely to have some of the same genes that made them suscpetible to getting it. But the causes of many neurological disorders like parkinsons, alzhimers and MS are still largely unknown... Many scientists agree that it's a combination of lifestyle, envorionment and physiological (genetic) factors. A genetic disorder usually refers to a disease/problem caused by your genetic makeup and that is present in all of your cells from birth. your chances of having MS might be increased by your genetic makeup, but I wouldnt call it a genetic disease or disorder. It could also be that since the people who are raising you have the same disorder, that you are subject to the same lifestyle and enviromental factors that could contribute to getting it.

And before you tell me I don't know what im talking about, im doing my PhD in neurological disorders ^_^

last edited by Strik3r at 13:48:58 02/May/08

I didn't make any claim that MS was a primarily genetic disease - just that it was influenced by genetics. This is most coarsely demonstrated by the difference in incidence between males and females.

In the context of the discussion MS is about as relevant as any other disease. In fact its a very good example because its all about percentages - my kids' likelihood of developing the disease is markedly increased bcause of my diagnosis, but it is still only a factor.

Raven's assertion that "MS is not genetic" is incorrect. Like breast cancer it is influenced by a number of variables, most of which are unknown, one of them being family history.

last edited by Hogfather at 14:09:32 02/May/08

Occasionally I speak out harshly on QGL, but I rarely do so strongly.

But this I will say.
Hogfather:
f***
YOU
if you think you can lecture *me* about MS >:|

Edit: No, seriously, f*** you.
You can add CF to that list; Coeliacs disease and diabetes too but I won't get so riled up about that.

Edit2:

Raven: If you are going to make a statement like "MS is not genetic", you should refer to some supporting evidence to prevent looking like a retart.

To me, on the topic of MS, that's like asking someone to provide supporting evidence when they say "the sky is blue".

last edited by Raven at 15:00:13 02/May/08

last edited by Raven at 15:07:06 02/May/08

Hi Raven,

Its not my fault that you're wrong? There are very clear genetic factors at play with MS.. Did you do as I recommended and Google "MS genetics" yet?

I'm sure that the research scientists working their arses off at the International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium to identify risk genes etc would appreciate your startling insights into how much they are wasting their time!


last edited by Hogfather at 15:41:49 02/May/08

Haha Raven still hasn't proven anything except that he doesn't like it when he's wrong.

Haha Raven still hasn't proven anything except that he doesn't like it when he's wrong.

QFT

So basically this thread is about Raven being some sort of freak genetic abnormality and his dreams of being in Top Gun 2 have been ruined ?

i'm sad coz usually when raven is wrong he says stuff like 'clearly, hogfather knows nothing about ms', then some insults, but never any backup. but this time he forgot the 'clearly' part which usually would make me smile :D

"clearly" is a given these days.

Back on topic, this s*** scares the f*** out of me for my kids. I'm already blacklisted from all sorts of insurance because of my diagnosis.

Lets say that an MS diagnosis is a liability of about a million dollars. I reckon that's cheap - MS is incurable and you live a long time with it. I'm already costing about 15k / year in medications.

If we accept the guy's figures in my previous quote of an MS parent lifting the chance of a child getting the disease to 3-4% then that's an increase of close enough to 2.5% that it doesn't matter (background chance for males in the western wold is loosely 1 in 1200, or less than one tenth of one percent).

2.5% of a million clams would be rather significantly incraesed premiums if passed along, even partially ..

last edited by Hogfather at 15:57:42 02/May/08

I thought MS was something like alzheimers but it turns out to be a messed up disiease I dont really understand o_O

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/about_ms/what_is_ms/index.html

Multiple Sclerosis has a genetic *susceptibility* and *predisposition*.
It is *NOT* a hereditary genetic disease (such as, for example, Cystic Fibrosis, which I am also a carrier for).
Hell, even the MSA misinformation page says in the opening under the 'Genetic' heading:

While MS is not hereditary, having a first-degree relative such as a parent or sibling with MS increases an individual's risk of developing the disease several-fold above the risk for the general population.

There is a big difference between a genetic susceptibility (which all the links you've provided point to) and an actual genetic inheritance.


Some of you d*******s need to realise that some people actually know what they're talking about a lot of the time - and no amount of quoting random pages changes facts.

And no, Saint - I don't like it when some f***wit tells me I don't know my arse from my elbow when I spent 20 years around it in and out of hospitals before he probably even knew what MS was. (I want to clarify, btw, that no, I am not saying I have MS - I don't).

last edited by Raven at 16:03:15 02/May/08

So you did want to be a pilot in the Top Gun 2 ?


You still might get in it but you'll have to be Tom Cruises love interest.

Obes, that might be the hardest decision I've had to make today if I had to make one. However at this point I'm not convinced being with 50 ft of Tom Cruise is worth any carrot you can hold out on a stick.

Hi Raven,

I repeatedly said MS has strong genetic markers, not that it was a "100% genetic" disease. I just said it again... Your original post stated flatly that "MS is not genetic" without the equivocation you later made. This is not true.

FYI your elbow isthe pointy arm bit, you arse is the bit you are speaking with.

ITT, we are talking about how genes affect the likelihood of developing diseases, and whether or not insurance companies should be able to increase premiums because of this.

The genetic markers they are starting to discover for MS increase the likelihood of a later diagnosis many, many times over.

For example:

studies in identical twins have provided clues that genetics have an influence on the course and severity of MS as well as people’s susceptibility to developing it. For example, in the case of identical twins which both develop MS - there is a 1 in 3 chance that if one identical twin develops MS, the other will too - they often experience a much similar course and severity of MS than non-identical twins or siblings who both develop the condition.

MS is also a really f***ing expensive disease to treat and treatment covers a very long time period.

This means that MS definetly is one of the diseases that could be targetted by insurance companies if they are allowed to set premiums according to genetic tests and screening. In the above example, twin #2 is a huge diagnosis risk following twin #1's bad news - and huge pemium increases for #2 is the sort fo thing nsurance companies would LOVE to implement!


last edited by Hogfather at 16:13:56 02/May/08

Don't give up raven ... anything is possible if you believe

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2973/hawkingweightlessqm3.jpg

I repeatedly said MS has strong genetic markers, not that it was a "100% genetic" disease. I just said it again... Your original post stated flatly that "MS is not genetic" without the equivocation you later made. This is not true.

I've already said, and it's quite evident, that you don't understand the difference between hereditary genetics and genetic predispositions. A genetic predisposition is never considered 'genetic'.
Here, let me help you understand.
Cystic Fibrosis: Genetic (Hereditary - requires two carriers).
Coeliacs disease: Hereditary.
Cancer: Genetic disposition.
Diabetes: Genetic disposition.
Multiple Sclerosic: Genetic disposition.
Growing a third arm where your dick should be: Genetic disposition.

The difference is something that you're susceptible to *does not mean you will inherit it*.
Something which is hereditary is implied that you *will* continue on those genes and/or be affected by them.

So I'll say it again: MS is not genetic.

i think you guys are missing the point.. this law is in place because the US health system is insurance based.. insurrance companies want to screen out potential patients so they dont have to pay for there care

imagine you needed a POTENTIAL lung transplant due to a genitic fault in your DNA... insurance companies were basically saying.. sorry you cant have medical care through us.. GO DIE MUTANT

the flow on effects of this law being passed might be felt in other realms however it was done for the humane care of all humans.

f*** the insurance companies for proposing such a f***ing scam

its up to us as a SOCIETY to care for all members within it.. not decide who lives and dies based on things we have no control over

some definitions of genetic disease

so basically raven what your saying, is that certain people with certain types of genes are more likely than others to get MS

whether they got it directly from their parents or not.

Which from what my limited understanding is, the whole f***ing point Hogfather was making.


What you really arguing is he used the wrong word, however at the end of the day it doesn't really matter in light of the point of the thread.

Raven ... I don't give a flying f*** about semantics of genetic disease or genetic pre-disposition or however you wanna word it. Its not relevant. Why?

Your original post is about:

Congress sent President Bush a bill Thursday forbidding employers and insurance companies from using genetic tests showing people are at risk of developing cancer, heart disease or other ailments to reject their job applications, promotions or health care coverage, or in setting premiums.

I posted in response about MS in general, and as being a disease that could be genetically risk-marked as described above, given that they are starting to identify gene markers for the pe-disposition.

You replied that "MS is not a genetic disease".

I'm wondering what the f*** you meant when you posted that. Are you saying that MS is not a disease of concern for the legislators in question? Did your "MS is not a genetic disease" remark have any bearing on this discussion or were you just bashing keys randomly?

last edited by Hogfather at 17:40:58 02/May/08

i don't know about you guys, but i sure hope whatever raven has isn't genetic.

i think its called stubborn dumbass syndrome.

Some of you d*******s need to realise that some people actually know what they're talking about a lot of the time - and no amount of quoting random pages changes facts.

well, yeh, right, but at face value I gotta be honest, I'm leaning more towards believing Hogfather who _has_ MS, which makes me believe he probably knows a bit more about it than you, but if you can bust out some creds I'll happily update my opinions

Superform: yeh its pretty scary man. I'm a member of a few online groups for MS - the stories about insurance companies and the medical industry over there in general are totally insane.


last edited by Hogfather at 18:18:02 02/May/08

Who do you listen to about the facts of cancer ... the patient or the doctor?

Not some random online that's for f***en sure :p

I would suggest people don't blindly trust doctors either. The first one I went to see when my leg went numb reckoned it was a TIA, or a mini-stroke..

Are you saying that MS is not a disease of concern for the legislators in question?

That was basically the point I was getting at. I've not read into fine details, but the way the article has it written makes the law either very gray or very dangerous.
Depending on how it's written it could also prevent someone being fired for, for example, drug abuse.

Hogfather is relying on loose definitions. Raven is being very literal.

dice has it.
And the above comment I've made is in similar line - like I said, I haven't completely read the details of the bill, but from what I've read in the linked article and a few other articles, it seems to be limited to genetic traits - not acquired diseases.

In other words - and I can't say for certain this is accurate - but it's the way I've read into it:
Pretend Hogfather provides (sidestepping the legality of actually asking for it in the first place), say, a blood test, and it turns up a disposition to be a likely person at disk of developing MS - they would not be able to fire, refuse to employ, or refuse to provide anything on that basis.

BUT, if he provided information that stated that he *did* have MS, it would likely not be covered under the law, and they'd still be able to do all those things I just mentioned.

I can't speak that this is accurate, and it may not hold in this case but may with lesser syndromes - but I hope you see the point I'm illustrating here: This bill does not appear to go far enough.

Edit:

Okay, so I've just started reading the bill, and I think I can safely already say that the second option I presented is accurate.

Taking from HR493 Section 210:

An employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee shall not be considered to be in violation of this title based on the use, acquisition, or disclosure of medical information that is not genetic information about a manifested disease, disorder, or pathological condition of an employee or member, including a manifested disease, disorder, or pathological condition that has or may have a genetic basis.

The details are in the section I've bolded, which is why what I've been arguing so vehemently on this defintion - if doubt can be cast as to the genetic nature of a syndrome (note the difference between a syndrome and a disease - a syndrome is something where there does not appear to be a known biological cause) then this could be dismissed or used as a loophole.
Therefore, something say caused by asbestos, or... I dunno, someone who's lost a leg in an accident - absolutely not covered.

Edit: Added for additional relevant information, from HR493 Section 201:

(7) GENETIC TEST-

(A) IN GENERAL- The term `genetic test' means an analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes.

(B) EXCEPTIONS- The term `genetic test' does not mean an analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes.

last edited by Raven at 20:36:15 02/May/08

Troll troll troll MS

CLEARLY troll troll troll smarter troll you

Typical day on QGL.



but more seriously, genism is imminent. It will come, and it will pass once we're all a bunch of super-humans with giant brains and muscles.

last edited by Phooks at 20:39:24 02/May/08

It will come, and it will pass once we're all a bunch of super-humans with giant brains and muscles.

don't forget large foreheads.

Well... I see no problems with being tested (as i was before joining the defence force) for current conditions that may affect your position. But using genetic testing to see if you are prone to having something (and not actually having it) is just bull s***.

Go watch Gattaca (spelling) if you have not seen it yet.

Haha, first time I have ever seen someone use the "(spelling)" marker and gotten the spelling right. Long live the internet!

But using genetic testing to see if you are prone to having something (and not actually having it) is just bull s***.

The thing is that the technology is quite useful. If I had been told 20 years ago that I have genetic predisposition to MS then there are things you can do to alleviate it(such as getting s***loads of Vitamin D rather than turning into a pasty computar nerd).

For purely genetic disorders (hi Raven!!) via screening they can secure an early diagnosis and commence treatment without delay - providing a better outcome for the patient.

As Uncle Ben says though, with great power comes great responsibility. Insurance companies (whic are clearly innately evil) shouldn't be able to get the result of these tests to determine premiums.

f***, how many of the world's problems can be solved if we apply philosophy from comic books and sci-fi?!

last edited by Hogfather at 10:22:08 03/May/08