On May 21, President Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination against individuals on the basis of their genetic information in both employment and health care. If you really want to genetically test your employees (and who doesn’t?) act now: The employment discrimination provisions won’t take effect until November 2009, and the health care provisions aren’t effective until May 2009.  (For those baffled by the reference, "Gattaca" is a great movie about genetic information discrimination (with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman!).   

Draconian Oregon employers beware: Oregon already prohibits employers from conducting brain-wave tests on employees. Really; we’re not making this up. It’s ORS 659A.300. If you’ve ever conducted a brain-wave test on an employee, please contact us — we’d love to hear from you.