Recent media accounts (e.g. this report — Blood Test Predicts Alzheimer’s Disease — by CNN ) suggest that medical researchers have discovered a blood test that will help identify whether people are likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease in their lifetime with 90% accuracy. So far, the test only has been conducted on individuals who are over 70 years old, but researchers will begin seeing whether these promising results can be obtained on people in their 40’s and 50’s. These research findings are obviously welcome news, but raise many questions assuming the test becomes more universally available. Not the least of these questions will be whether people really will want to know their fate. Any number of factors will likely play into any one person’s decision, but whether obtaining the test will have any impact on his or her employment should not be one of them.
Continue Reading Availability of alzheimer’s blood test underscores employer need to maintain confidentiality of protected health information