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GINA Is In Effect
The employment sections of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act ("GINA") have been in effect as of November 21, 2009. GINA was enacted as a result of Congress finding that new advances in genetics, including deciphering the sequence of the human genome, have given rise to the potential misuse of genetic information to discriminate in employment. Signed into law on May 21, 2008, Senator Ted Kennedy described GINA as "the first civil rights bill of the new century of the life sciences." The law incorporates many of the familiar definitions, remedies and procedures from Title VII, and similar to Title VII, it covers employers with 15 or more employees.