Critics blast insurer's use of new cancer test; questions arise over accuracy of procedure.

Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Co. should not use a test -- which may be the most sensitive test ever developed to detect malignant tumors -- to deny people life insurance, said Dr. Paul Goldfarb, president of the California chapter of the America Cancer Society.

Transamerica officials recently announced that because of the test, called the TAA (Tumor Associated Antigen) test, the company is now offering a cheaper life insurance product to people in remission from malignant melanomas.

Under the guidelines for the new product, which the company announced on Aug. 24, applicants who are in remission from a malignant melanoma won't have to wait as long to obtain insurance, said Bill Scott, vice president of new products for the Los Angeles-based insurer.

Despite that reduced price and quicker approval, the new super-sensitive test may also be leading to some life insurance applicants being unfairly rejected, critics charged.

Transamerica has been using the TAA test for about 18 months to screen applicants for life insurance policies of $100,000 and more, said Transamerica spokeswoman Carol Bromberg. She said the company has not publicized the fact it has been using the test until it announced the new, cheaper life insurance product last month.

Of 44,000 life insurance applicants who submitted blood samples and underwent TAA testing, one in 300 tested positive and was initially denied a policy, Bromberg said. One in three that tested TAA positive were later granted policies after they underwent other cancer tests which showed they did not have a malignancy, she said.

The test "is not 100 percent accurate," she said. Although the test was developed to detect melanoma, it can detect other types of tumorous cancers as well, Transamerica officials said.

Goldfarb of the Cancer Society said that while the test may be shown one day to be an important tool in detecting and fighting cancer, there is not enough known about it to allow the Cancer Society to give it its stamp of approval.

"I think there is insufficient information about this test to have it placed into the standard health-care workup for insurance," Goldfarb said. "For an insurer to say they are using this as a way to identify people they don't want to insure may be precipitous," Goldfarb said.

Bromberg said the company had expected that "the general medical community may be skeptical" about the test. She admitted that the test is a tool "to lower risk" for the company in issuing policies to people with cancer.

But she added that it is also a tool to enable the company to grant policies to former cancer patients who are in remission, and who would not have been able to get life insurance in the past.

Scott said that people who had recovered from the most serious bouts with melanoma had to wait as long as 10 years to be eligible for life insurance. Under the new program, the maximum wait for former melanoma patients who test negative with the TAA test is four years.

Those who test negative may also see premiums reduced from $5,000 a year to $2,000 a year -- depending on the applicant's age -- for a $100,000 life insurance policy, Scott said.

One day the test may enable Los Angeles-based Transamerica and other life insurers to sell insurance faster and cheaper to people who have recovered from breast cancer, colon cancer and other tumorous cancers, Scott said.

Bromberg said insurers have long been on "the cutting edge" in developing medical tests which are now in standard use in the medical community.

It was insurance companies, not hospitals or doctors, who developed the first tests to detect high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and other ailments, Bromberg said.

Goldfarb, of the Cancer Society, agreed that life insurance companies were on the forefront in developing medical tests, but said companies didn't develop the tests to help people get medical treatment, but to help the companies decide who they should and should not insure.

Dr. Donald L. Morton, a famous oncologist and medical researcher, who is the medical director of the Santa Monica-based John Wayne Cancer Institute, developed the TAA test. Morton said he agreed to let Transamerica use the TAA test if the company agreed to sell a cheaper life insurance product to former melanoma patients.

"My patients tell me they can't get insurance," Morton said.

Morton said that the test "may" be the most sensitive test ever to indicate whether or not someone has a cancerous tumor, may be able to detect cancer in people who have no symptoms, and may be able to detect cancer earlier than a mammogram would.

Goldfarb said, "I think the operative word is, may."