British Insurers Defy Public on Genetic Testing ...
COMTEX Newswire
Dec 03, 2000 (Sunday Business - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX)
-- Insurers are pressing ahead with plans to expand the range of
government-approved genetic tests despite research which reveals trenchant
public opposition.
A survey by the Human Genetics Commission found that only 8 percent of the
public believed insurers should use genetic-test results for setting insurance
premiums.
The study, conducted on 788 members of a panel set up in April to represent
public opinion, comes after the government approved the use of genetic tests
earlier this year to identify people with hereditary illnesses.
In October, the government ratified a test thought to be a strong indicator for
Huntingdon's disease, a fatal, inherited brain condition. The reliability and
validity of a further six tests are to be examined within months.
Most life-insurance providers are already using information from single-gene
tests, thought to be the most reliable indicators, in their underwriting. But,
under the Association of British Insurers' code of practice, companies have
agreed to limit the use of test information to just seven diseases:
Huntingdon's, Alzheimer's, hereditary breast cancer, myotonic distrophy,
multiple endocrine neoplasia, hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy and
familial adenomatous polyposis.
In the UK, around 30,000 people suffer from the seven conditions and about
90,000 -- likely to be the sufferers' immediate families -- are thought to be
likely to have taken a test. It is these 90,000 that most interest insurance
companies.
The high costs involved, and the need to provide counselling in the event of a
positive result, prevents insurers from testing all their customers. Instead,
the aim is to force life and health insurance applicants who have taken tests in
the past to reveal the results.
A negative result would mean the customer is able to buy an insurance policy at
the normal level of premium. But customers testing positive face a hiked premium
or even refusal.
It is this concern which has led to criticism that testing could help to create
a genetic underclass of customers unable to obtain life insurance cover.
Countries including Austria and Denmark have passed legislation to ban the use
of genetic test information by insurers. And concern over genetic-testing in the
US has spread to employment, where federal agencies are prevented from using
genetic information, such as a risk of heart disease, as a basis of hiring,
firing, or promoting employees.
In the UK, the potential cost savings to insurance companies using genetic tests
is not easily quantifiable. But Professor Sandy Raeburn of Nottingham
University, who advises the ABI, says the ban on test information by some
countries is unjustified as it "results in higher premiums for the majority" of
policyholders.
Raeburn expects the volume of customers taking tests "to increase" as more
conditions become testable and as some of the health checks continue to reach a
plateau.
Insurers insist they will never ask a customer to take a test in the future, but
there is far less clarity in the potential for more speculative multi-gene test
information being used.
The government's review of public opinion, however, may not allow the smooth
progress of genetic testing for insurers. Russ Whitworth, chief medical
insurance underwriter for Legal & General, is concerned that "public pressure"
could eventually bring legislation in the UK to ban the practice.
And insurers are not united on the issue. Standard Life, the Co-operative
Insurance Society, Cornhill, the UK arm of German insurance giant Allianz, have
agreed not to use genetic test results in their underwriting.
The Co-operative opposes the move on both moral on financial grounds. It claims
the tests "are not an exact science" and cannot predict an impending illness
beyond doubt.
It believes the focus of insurance companies on testing channels attention away
from gene- therapy treatments and more positive scientific development.
Scientists who pioneered the Human Genome Project agree. Researchers from the
Sanger Centre, near Cambridge, believe the ruling will lead to a shortage of
recruits over concern that the discovery of further abnormal genes could create
an underclass unable to get insurance. This, in turn, could lead to an exodus of
research talent to mainland Europe or the US.
By Jon Menon
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(c) 2000, Sunday Business, London. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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