2021 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 37-45
There is a debate in the insurance field concerning regulations on the use of genetic information.
This article clarifies some problems surrounding this issue, beginning from one court case in which the court applied a “clause of congenital anomaly” and granted immunity to an insurance company on the grounds that the insured person's disease was hereditary. This court case shows us that when a patient is diagnosed with a genetic disease based on a clinical diagnosis rather than a genetic test, even if the insured party is treated disadvantageously because of this condition, the law will not recognize it as discriminatory treatment based on genetic information. These kinds of precedents could undermine the effectiveness of genetic information usage regulations.
In order to avoid discriminatory treatment based on genetic information, and considering that it is often difficult to distinguish genetic information from medical information, it is vital to thoroughly discuss what kinds of genetic information are to be the subject of regulation. Furthermore, it is important to have an open discussion not only in the insurance industry but also in society as a whole concerning what kind of intervention is possible when people with hereditary conditions are put at a disadvantage such as in the abovementioned court case.
