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Berlin Bans Compulsory Genetic Testing By Employers, Insurers BERLIN (AFP) - The German government will introduce urgent legislation prohibiting obligatory genetic testing by employers and insurance companies, a top official was reported as saying at the end of last week. Wolf-Michael Catenhusen, Parliamentary Secretary in the Science and Education Ministry, told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung: "It is of the greatest importance that insurance companies and employers must not be allowed to impose obligatory tests." He said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrat-Greens coalition government would announce "a clear legal prohibition as speedily as possible to avoid this risk." However, German insurers registered their opposition to the proposed legislation. A spokesman of their umbrella association, the GDV, was quoted by Berliner Zeitung as saying insurance companies were against the government "banning us from including the results of (genetic) tests in the parameters for risk evaluation." Insurers claim that genetic testing could in future reduce insurance premiums because of the exclusion of certain risks in health and life insurance. Berliner Zeitung quoted various German insurance companies, including the sector leader Allianz, as stressing that the question was not an immediate one because of the present state of research. But they said they were following research developments with interest. "We have to keep all our options open," Gerhard Rupprecht, head of life insurance at Allianz, was quoted as saying. The science ministry official Catenhusen was also quoted as noting the United States and Britain were already addressing the problem of genetic testing in the insurance field. US President Bill Clinton signed an executive order in February forbidding genetic discrimination in the federal government, amid increasing fears of the practice in the United States. The decree prohibits the use of genetic tests as a condition of employment or the right to medical insurance or the use of genetic data - such as a predisposition to certain medical conditions - in deciding promotions. "We note increasing concerns by employees and America as a whole about the potential of genetic testing for fear this information will be misused in terms of employment and health insurance," said White House adviser Chris Jennings
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