Risky Business
Genetic Testing and Exclusionary Practices in the Hazardous Workplace

Professor Draper shows that a major shift has been taking place in the prevailing conception of risk in the workplace.

Elaine Draper (Author)

9780521422482, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 August 1991

336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

At a time when more corporate employers are using genetic information as a cornerstone of their hiring practices, when workers find their chromosomes considered alongside their resumes, the ramifications of genetic testing demand further examination. Risky Business analyzes health screening in the workplace - three major types of testing are examined: genetic screening in which job applicants and employees are tested for inherited traits that may predispose them to the disease:genetic monitoring that aims to detect genetic damage among current employees that could indicate exposure to dangerous chemicals; and teratogenic risk in which laboratory cultures and animals are used to provide evidence of the effects of chemical exposure on humans.

Foreword Nicholas A. Ashford
Preface
Introduction
1. Genetic testing and exclusionary practices in the workplace: risk, power, and controversy
2. the rise of the genetic paradigm for occupational risk
3. Competing conceptions of safety: high-risk workers or high-risk work?
4. Sex, race, and genetic predisposition
5. Power and control in industrial medicine
6. Who bears the burden? The legal and economic context of occupational disease
7. The social construction of workplace hazards: Conclusions and policy implications
Appendix
Notes
Glossary
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS]