Our Brave New World Moving Toward Gattica

Companies in the US, especially private companies, in my opinion have the right to do whatever they wish as long as they are not causing harm. If Scott wishes to not employ people that have health risks be they smoking or obesity, that is their privilege, the government has no right to tell them who to hire or not to hire. And in turn the company will reap the benefits or consequences of such policy. Now once a person is employed by Scott, they must make their guidelines and policies totally clear so that employees can follow them easily and avoid extra expenses on health care and termination. I think Hagedorn’s drive to eradicate smoking from Scott is admirable; however I am just not that kind of person. I don’t feel like it is my position in life to dictate anyone’s lifestyle, as I do not wish mine to be dictated, and I would be concerned about the great candidates that I would be missing out on just because they smoke or eat fast food. Even if it were my company, I wouldn’t feel that I had the right to govern my employees’ lifestyles outside of work. All that being said I also feel that what they are doing, and it will be legally validated or invalidated through the Rodrigues case, is a slippery slope and as we gain more knowledge about genetics we will soon have the power to give probabilities of suffering certain diseases at birth and that knowledge could definitely be used by a company to refuse employment. BUT THEY ARE STILL PROBABILITIES!! Even if we read a genome at birth there is no way to say to a 100% certainty that that individual will suffer from alcoholism or diabetes because even if it is minute there is still the factor of environment. Therefore companies will continue to do the same as Scott, because corporations will ALWAYS want to cut costs, but as consumers we have the power to not buy Scott products or apply to work there because of their discriminatory practices. To summarize, Scott can do as it wishes to save money or get their employees in better health the government has no power to stop them as long as they are following a clear policy, but I consider it a dangerous precedence and an unfortunate commentary on the state of health care in the US.