In addition to the workgroup sessions, the conference featured four keynote' addresses and three panel discussions given by prominent scientists.

One of the themes addressed by many of the speakers was the degree to which genetic information should be private and how that privacy relates to employment and insurance.

"The most critical pressing issue in society today is the loss of privacy," said Dr. Helen Doris Keller, director of the division of human molecular genetics in the department of surgery at Washington University's School of Medicine.

"The fact that a person's genome gives personalized, unique information means that access to such a genome could lay the grounds for severe genetic discrimination," she said.

Keller said a person's social security number was one example in which private information could quickly become public.

"Once you sign that number on a check, it becomes part of the information highway accessible to all," Keller said.

Wendy McGoodwin, executive director for the Council of Responsible Genetics in Cambridge, Mass., argued that using genetic tests in the context of employment, insurance and access to public services is inappropriate because the tests only reveal a limited amount of information.

"A genetic test tells nothing of the severity of the disorder," McGoodwin said. "This ambiguity makes making predictions about an individual based on these tests unfair."

In some cases, people are dissuaded from taking genetic tests out of fear that the test results will be placed on their permanent medical records, McGoodwin said.

"People are afraid to go in for genetic testing," McGoodwin said. "I have a friend whose father has Huntington's disease, which means she has a fifty-fifty chance of carrying the gene. She is curious to know whether she has the gene but is afraid to go in for testing because if the test comes out positive, that result may be used against her by various agencies."

But other speakers argued that companies should be able to request genetic information so that they can maintain a profit.

"It's only fair to the insurance companies if the individual comes to them with cards face up," said Rob Bier, director of information services for the American Council of Life Insurance. "Any tests results that the individual knows about the insurance agency should know about so that a fair assessment of the risk can be made."

To support his statement, Bier cited how women are charged lower insurance rates because they generally live longer than men.

Patents and Commercialization

Along with the question, of profit, participants also addressed whether companies should be able to capitalize on genetic discoveries through patents and commercialization.