U.S. Laws Inadequate to Protect Individuals from Biomarker Information Discrimination
Current U.S. laws do not fully protect individuals from discrimination based on their biomarker information, according to LDI Senior Fellow Emily Largent. As biomarker science advances rapidly, enabling the prediction of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's years before symptoms appear, concerns are rising that this information could be used by insurers and employers to deny coverage or reject job applicants. Largent highlights that individuals who are biomarker-positive but asymptomatic are the least protected group, as laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) generally presume individuals are symptomatic, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) does not apply to biomarkers. This leaves cognitively unimpaired individuals particularly vulnerable to potential discrimination.
