Political Quotes

“we are about to vote on legislation that will provide important new protections against employment and health insurance discrimination based on genetic profiling. The bill protects Americans from both disease and discrimination. We have been working on this legislation for many years, and I am pleased today that the Senate is about to act. I expect that today the Senate will overwhelmingly pass the genetic information nondiscrimination bill. I especially, commend my colleagues Senators Snowe, Gregg, Jeffords, Daschle, Kennedy, Enzi, Hagel, Collins and DeWine for their hard work and dedication over many years. Since we began looking at the issue of genetic discrimination, genetic scholarship has advanced by leaps and bounds. This year, scientists, working in collaboration with the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, published a final draft of the sequence of the entire human genetic code. It's a dazzling accomplishment that makes possible unprecedented understanding of human development, health and disease. It has the potential to change the way we practice medicine. Scientists will be able to design drugs to treat specific genes. Tissues and organs may be specifically engineered for use in transplantation. Preventive care may potentially be based in large part on genetic testing. But this new knowledge is also fraught with risk.”