Genetic Testing of Employees: New Technologies, New Challenges, and New Laws for Employers in the Nineties

Abstract

In their book Megatrends 2000, John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene (1990) stated that one of the ten “megatrends for the 1990's would be the rise of “The Age of Biology.” One of the central forces behind this societal shift which is occurring right now, they say, is research into understanding human genetics and the rise of biotechnology. The scientific knowledge regarding human genetics and the technology to examine an individual's genetic makeup have grown at a rapid pace, especially in the last decade as a result of the Human Genome Project. This venture has been labelled alternatively as “mediocre science” (Roberts, 1990b: p. 804) and as “biology's Holy Grail,” (Nelkin and Tancredi, 1989: p. 14). It is indisputably a monumental scientific undertaking, likened to the drive to put a man on the moon in the sixties (“The Geography of Genes,” 1989). This knowledge and the resultant trends will likely prove to be important factors not only in our future economy, but also in the nature of how we understand ourselves.

Citation

Wyld, D.C., Cappel, S.D. and Hallock, D.E. (1992), "Genetic Testing of Employees: New Technologies, New Challenges, and New Laws for Employers in the Nineties", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb010562