The UK has been praised for its rules on insurer access to genetic test results – amid concerns that insurance problems may deter patients from necessary medical tests.
A comparative study, reported to the conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Copenhagen, Denmark, says the UK provides an "effective" balance between the demands of insurers and the need to prevent genetic discrimination.
Researcher Anya Prince compared the UK with Australia, where there are few restrictions, and Canada, where the Parliament is trying to introduce a ban on insurers using genetic test results.
In the UK insurers are allowed to use some genetic tests for policies worth more than £500,000 – but so far this only applies to Huntington’s disease.
Ms Prince, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, said: "Personally, I think that a two-tier system, as implemented in the UK, creates an appropriate balance. If insurers are allowed to use test results, I believe their model of an independent committee controlling which test results they may use is necessary."
Conference chair Professor Joris Veltman, director of Newcastle University’s institute of genetic medicine in the UK, said: "Genetic testing is becoming more mainstream and providing an increasing amount of information that can be used to predict disease risks. It is therefore important to evaluate who may or may not have access to these data and for what purpose, and make sure we develop common rules that can be internationally applied and upheld.
"This work provides an important analysis of the way different countries deal with this."
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