Congress Thursday sent a bill to President George Bush that would protect Americans from "Gene Discrimination". The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act would make it illegal for employers or insurance companies to discriminate against people using DNA testing. 
    "Your skin color, your gender, all of those are part of your DNA," said Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute. "Shouldn't the rest of your DNA also fall under that protective umbrella?"
    President Bush is excpected to sign the bill into law which was passed almost unanimously in congress. The only member of Congress to vote against the bill was Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. He stated that "Because of the federal government's poor record in protecting privacy, I do not believe the best way to address concerns about the misuse of genetic information is through intrusive federal legislation,". A reasonable concern regarding our government but I think they would have this info either way.
    Proponents say the bill "guarantees that no one will be denied health insurance or fired from a job because of a genetic test," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Also it is believed that more Americans would be willing to be tested. Increased genetic testing makes it more likely researchers will come up with early, lifesaving therapy for a wide range of diseases with hereditary links such as breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and Parkinson's disease, lawmakers said.
    Congress gets an A+ for this effort toward protecting our rights, but I wonder how long it will be before they find reasons to use the information and manipulate that right as they have done in other areas in the past.