There is a federal law preventing genetic discrimination by federal employers, but there are no similar federal protections for private employers. Washington does not have any laws to prevent discrimination based on genetic susceptibilities. Putting policies in place today is critical as the number of genetic tests begins to mushroom, geneticists said. Genetic tests on the market today can detect genes that predispose people to everything from breast cancer to alcoholism. What genetic tests can't do is tell who, among those who carry the genes, will actually get the diseases.
Most diseases are also subject to environmental influences.
Children's Hospital, which maintains the only national log that tracks the availability of genetic tests, now lists 787 such tests, compared with 111 tests available in 1993, the year Children's started tracking them. Burke, who also serves on the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing for the National Institutes of Health, is part of a national effort to make genetic tests subject to tougher regulations, including labeling to specify what they can and cannot determine, and subject to review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The advisory committee has already asked the FDA to develop a special program for oversight of genetic tests. Currently, genetic tests fall through several regulatory cracks. Tests sold for clinical diagnostic purposes are not required to supply data to the FDA supporting their claims that they can detect a predisposition for a specific disease.