Biological monitoring in the workplace: ethical issues.

This paper addresses the following questions concerning medical surveillance and the worker's relationship to management: Do workers have a moral obligation to participate in workplace screening and monitoring when undertaken to enhance the interests of occupational health? What conditions would be necessary to establish the existence of such a moral obligation? If such an obligation were to be established, ought it be satisfied solely on the basis of voluntary collaboration? Is compulsory participation in monitoring and screening ever morally justified? Should the principle of informed voluntary consent that obtains in medical research apply to workplace investigations that involve potentially invasive procedures and risks to privacy?