GINA, genism, and civil rights.

Culminating its 13-year legislative gestation, The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), was signed by President George W. Bush on May 21, 2008. GINA is the first major federal law to come out of the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) portion of the Human Genome Project. The passage of GINA has been widely celebrated. For the genetic research community, the act was sought to encourage people to become research subjects by providing them with some assurance that genetic research results would not be used against them by health insurance companies or employers. For Francis Collins, the project’s leader, the long gestation period was a ‘silver lining’ in that it provided many opportunities ‘to educate policymakers about the potential of genomic medicine and the challenges that must be addressed if we are to realize that potential’.