HD Australia

Delving into your genetic make-up could have seriousfinancial ramifications, writes Lesley Parker.
When Peter Carroll's son died suddenly at the age of 11 andmuscular dystrophy emerged as a suspect, he and his wife faced thedilemma of whether to have their daughter tested for the mutatedgene that causes the disorder.
Doctors were keen but Carroll, who has worked as a consultant tothe life insurance industry and reported to the Hawke-Keating Laborgovernment on concerns around HIV-AIDS and insurance, was havingnone of it.
"The issue for me was simple," Carroll says. "If she's clear,well and good. But if she's not clear one day she'll have aboyfriend, she'll think about having a family, she'll be getting ajob, she'll need life insurance ... so we made a choice not to haveour child tested because of all the social and financialimplications."
That was in 1991. Years later, as an adult, his daughter madeher own decision to be tested for the faulty gene and waspronounced clear.
Today, Carroll is a director of the Ozecover health insuranceportal and is watching the controversy over the decision by healthinsurer NIB to offer cut-price genetic testing to 5000customers.
NIB insists its motive is simple - armed with specificinformation about risks, its customers may be encouraged to improvetheir "health behaviour".
However, it has been criticised for not doing more to informpeople of the potential implications of having a genetic testshould they subsequently seek, or alter, a life insurancepolicy.
NIB, which sells life insurance in partnership with TowerAustralia, merely notes in the letter to its customers that they"may be required to disclose genetic test results ... to lifeinsurance or superannuation providers".
There are also concerns the sort of multi-gene test it promotedis conducted outside the mainstream health-care system, bycommercial laboratories based outside Australia, without theguidance of a personal doctor.
IMPLICATIONS
In Britain, insurer access to this sort of information is muchmore limited under a moratorium put in place nearly a decade agoand the US has new non-discrimination legislation in thisregard.
In Australia, there are no financial effects from having agenetic test from a purely health-insurance perspective.
"NIB is a health insurer and any health information from genetictesting won't affect your health-insurance premium, because ofcommunity rating," says Kristine Barlow-Stewart, director of theCentre for Genetics Education and a member of the National Healthand Medical Research Council's human genetics advisory committee,which advises the federal government. SMH

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2010/03/ ... 61874.html