Sir, - The Irish Insurance Federation appears to be about to follow the UK decision to use genetic testing in assessing life insurance. This is a serious threat to privacy and also a threat to the health and welfare of the Irish people.
The great majority of geneticists world-wide are fundamentally opposed to genetic information being used by insurance companies. This has become an issue because many more genetic tests are being developed using DNA and protein analysis. For example, there are more than 100 genes in which mutations may predispose a person to cancer and new tests for these are being developed. The flood of new tests was predictable and geneticists have been trying to alert the public as to how they can be used and abused.
At the International Congress of Genetics held in Birmingham several years ago, a plenary session decided unanimously that genetic information should in principle be private; this decision was communicated to the international press by the Nobel Prize winner Max Perutz.
At about the same time the Department of Health was advised by one of us on the drafting of a law to prevent health insurance companies from using genetic tests to adjust premiums. This is consistent with the principle of community rating. We all have genetic risks, some of which we may know about but most we do not, and under the present arrangement we all share each other's genetic risks in taking out health insurance. In our opinion that is the way it should be for life insurance.
Obviously there can be exceptions defined by law - for example, the use of specific DNA fingerprints (which have no special medical significance) in detecting criminals. Insurance companies are entitled to be protected from people who take out very large policies after finding that they have a genetic disorder. But such exceptions need to be carefully defined in law.
This is an urgent matter. It is clear that people are becoming reluctant to have genetic tests which could be helpful to them in caring for their health and the health of their families. They fear that their responsible behaviour in having genetic tests will cause them to be penalised when they want to take out an ordinary life policy. This is clearly unacceptable. - Yours, etc.,
David McConnell, Ph.D., Kevin Devine, PhD., Tony Kavanagh, PhD., Seamus Martin, PhD., Andrew Lloyd, PhD., Dan Bradley, PhD., Michael Gill, MD., Mark Lawler, PhD., Pete Humphries, Ph.D., Jane Farrar, PhD., Department of Genetics, Trinity College, Dublin 2.