Summary
Anyone who is exposed to hazardous substances at work runs the risk of his or her health being damaged.
The damage may be temporary or permanent, serious or less serious. The greater the exposure to the hazardous substance,
the more people can be affected by it and the more serious the consequences may be.
But not everyone becomes ill, even if they work in the same conditions. Some employees
are therefore said to be 'more susceptible' than others. To explain these differences
in susceptibility, we can turn to genetics. It is man's genetic diversity
that is (partly) at the root of why different people react to a certain substance
in different ways.
Differences in susceptibility between individuals are not, however, only determined
by genetic differences. A great number of non-inherited factors (environmental
among others) also play a part. In other words a complex process is at work in
which different factors interact with each other.
At present, with the genetic tests currently available to us, we are not yet able
to make a reliable assessment of the susceptibility of the individual to certain
occupational diseases. Therefore it is not justifiable to rule out potential employees
solely on the basis of the scientific point of view.
To reduce the risk of an occupational illness, other means must be given precedence,
namely prevention at the workplace. In this way, less exposure will reduce
the risk of damage to health.
In theory, occupational medicine has nothing to do with selection. Its
task in law is to contribute towards the social protection of each employee or
applicant. This means that it must ensure that both the job and the health of
each individual who has the ability to perform a certain job is protected.
Because flexibility in the labour market is predominating more and more, for practical reasons alone the protective role
of occupational medicine is becoming ever more difficult to fulfil.
At the same time we can foresee that genetic tests will appear on the market
in which the predictive value and the significance for the prevention of occupational
diseases will be unjustly emphasised. Service centres that are unfamiliar with
occupational medicine will apply to employers and insurers to carry out these
genetic tests.
Measures to prevent the misuse or improper use of genetic tests appear
to be inevitable. Steps must be taken to ensure that occupational medicine can
continue to perform consistently its function of social protection.
The aim of this website is to provide information so as to involve as many interested
parties as possible in the social debate about the acceptability of genetic
testing in the working environment.
The authors opt for an approach in which modern investigation techniques can be
used solely for the purposes of social protection and whereby it must be
prevented that people are excluded from employment.