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On May 21, 2008, President Bush signed into law the “Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008.” Among other things, the law prohibits employers from discriminating against an individual based upon his or her “genetic information,” which means information about: “(i) such individual’s genetic tests, (ii) the genetic tests of family members of such individual, and (iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family members of such individual.”
The law also provides that an employer generally may not “request, require, or purchase genetic information with respect to an employee or a family member of the employee.” If an employer possesses an employee’s genetic information, “such information shall be maintained on separate forms and in separate medical files and be treated as a confidential medical record of the employee.” The law’s employment-related provisions will take effect on November 21, 2009.
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