Press Release 06/2005
Berlin, 16 August 2005
German National Ethics Council presents Opinion on predictive health information in pre-employment medical examinations
After several months of intensive deliberations, the National Ethics Council is today (Tuesday) publishing its Opinion on predictive health information in the world of work.
The issue addressed by the Opinion is the extent to which it
should be permissible to make the conclusion of a contract of
employment or appointment as a civil servant dependent on the
determination and use of information concerning the future course
of a past or present medical condition or the risk of a disease
that has not yet become manifest. Such probabilities can be established increasingly
accurately by means not only of genetic but also of other techniques of medical examination,
such as analyses of blood chemistry or radiology. Medicine can also offer prognoses
in relation to conditions from which job applicants have suffered in the past or are
currently suffering. For this reason, widespread concerns have been voiced for some
time that employers might make use of the potential of predictive diagnosis in
decisions on the filling of a given post.
In the view of the National Ethics Council, it is legitimate for an employer,
prior to deciding whether to engage a candidate, to consider whether he or she is
fit for the relevant duties physically, mentally and in terms of health. Questions
about an applicant's health status and personal medical history, as well as medical
examinations, are therefore permissible where necessary at the time of appointment
for determining fitness for the proposed activity.
Conversely, limitations should be imposed on the use of health information obtained
from questionnaires or from a pre-employment medical examination where such
information relates to the future fitness of a candidate. It should be confined to
conditions and predispositions with a probability exceeding 50% of having non-negligible
effects on the candidate's fitness for the post in question within a period following
engagement to be set by law or collective bargaining - e.g. on the basis of the usual
six-month probationary period. In particular, examinations of candidates should not
be allowed for "screening" purposes, but only if there is reason to suspect the possible
presence of a specific condition or predisposition.
More extensive examinations for currently symptom-free conditions or ones of predictable
onset should be permissible if they are necessary to preclude risks to third parties,
as for example in the case of pilots.
The principles outlined above cannot be applied without reservation to the
appointment of civil servants. In this instance the employer assumes a duty
of care towards, and an obligation to provide for the welfare of, a civil
servant that persist throughout the employee's life. As provided in the regulations obtaining in
the individual German Länder on the appointment of severely disabled persons as civil servants,
it should be permissible for predictive and prognostic information to be demanded and used only
in the case of conditions and predispositions with more than a 50% probability of having a
non-negligible effect on an applicant's health-related fitness within the next five years.
The National Ethics Council will shortly be considering issues of predictive health
information in the insurance sector.
The German text of the Opinion Predictive Health Information in Pre-Employment
Medical Examinations can be accessed online at:
http://www.ethikrat.org/stellungnahmen/stellungnahmen.html
An English version will be available in due course.
(back to the top)
|
