DNA Testing in Major League Baseball Could Affect You, Too

Let's talk baseball and genes.

It's not every day that a sportswriter quotes a bioethicist, but worried ethicists have been sounding off in the New York Times sports section all week. The problem: Major League Baseball has been forcing some top young Latin American prospects and their families to verify their identities with a DNA test.

And even if you and your kids don't have a million-dollar signing bonus pending with the Yankees, this story has implications for you, too, so take note.

First a little background: Pro baseball scouts say they've been forced to turn to genetic testing by cases like the Nationals' Esmailyn Gonzalez.

The Nationals were chagrined in February to learn that a star "19-year-old" they'd signed for $1.4 million in 2006 was actually 23. That means he was probably close to his peak ability at signing, rather than still developing.

Now, legal experts are divided over whether a potential employer who subjects prospects from outside the U.S. to DNA tests violates GINA — the tough genetic privacy law that Congress passed last year. (The part of the law restricting employers officially goes into effect on November 21.)

But ethicists are very clear that what the teams are doing violates the law's spirit. A ball club that asks for a test to verify identity today may be strongly tempted to check tomorrow for genes that predispose a player to future illness or injury.

As Kathy Hudson, director of Johns Hopkins' Genetics and Public Policy Center told the Times,

The point of GINA was to remove the temptation and prohibit employers from asking for or receiving genetic information.

The risk to players — and to you — isn't just hypothetical.

(Read past the jump to learn how gene tests can still affect your ability to get life insurance)

 

For one thing, even at its strongest, GINA will only protect a person's genetic information from an employer or health insurer. Companies selling life or disability or long-term care insurance can still use genetic information to screen out applicants or to raise their rates.

Last month, a study in the British Medical Journal detailed all the ways that 167 healthy volunteers at risk for the inherited illness Huntington's disease have suffered genetic discrimination. The researchers write,

Despite previous claims that genetic discrimination is rare, discrimination was reported by nearly 40 percent...most often in reference to life and disability insurance, and among family and friends.

Think about that the next time you consider getting your DNA scanned and posting the results online.