A Legal Analysis of Genetic Screening

Genetic testing will benefit both workers and employers by helping to maintain a healthy workforce. Employers have an ethical obligations to eliminate, or at the very least, minimize the possibility of workplace illness and injury. One way to approach this obligation is to improve the workplace, which means to modify the workplace to the needs of the worker. In reality, it may not always be economically reasonable for an employer to eliminate all substances that put a few oversensitive employees at risk. Instead, it may be more sensible not to hire susceptible workers and to transfer susceptible workers to different positions. Genetic testing could benefit workers directly by providing information that will allow them to avoid placement in potentially harmful work environments, thus sparing workers and their families the physical, emotional, and financial burdens of disabling disease or death. The idea is that, once informed of their increased risk or susceptibility, workers can evaluate their situation and take preventative measures to avoid exposure to workplace toxins or environmental factors.…