ABSTRACT

Ethical and practical issues around genetic research are of major international concern, both in academia and in the public domain. Questions concerning what interventions are possible and appropriate with the increasing amount of genetic information available, challenge our understandings of ourselves, our health and wellbeing, and the role of medical ethics, public health, surveillance and risk. However there has been little reflection on the socio-political effects of this new genetic knowledge and the changes in practice that are currently impacting on our lives.

Containing contributions from key international researchers, this book examines the broader issues of genetic debates and looks at how prediction and risk assessment is being changed in the arenas of health, medicine and reproduction, bringing new insight on the dangers of surveillance, regulation and increased inequality. Developed out of the Taylor and Francis journal Critical Public Health, the book considers the implications of developments in genetics for contemporary liberal governance, as well as for the future of healthcare and public health.

chapter |26 pages

Genetics and governance

An introduction

part I|61 pages

Ethics, risk and governance

chapter Chapter 1|15 pages

Ethics of clinical genetics

The spirit of the profession and trials of suitability from 1970 to 2000

chapter Chapter 2|17 pages

Risk management and ethics in high-tech antenatal care

The Finnish experience

chapter Chapter 3|14 pages

The first genetic screening in Finland

Its execution, evaluation and some possible implications for liberal government

chapter Chapter 4|14 pages

Choice as responsibility

Genetic testing as citizenship through familial obligation and the management of risk

part II|55 pages

Risk, population and identity

chapter Chapter 6|14 pages

The sociology of the new genetics

Conceptualizing the links between reproduction, gender and bodie

chapter Chapter 7|14 pages

Whose right to choose?

The new genetics, prenatal testing and people with learning difficulties

chapter Chapter 8|15 pages

‘New’ genetics meets the old underclass

Findings from a study of genetic outreach services in rural Kentucky

part III|51 pages

Knowledge, governance and the future

chapter Chapter 9|14 pages

Public health and the ‘new genetics’

Balancing individual and collective outcomes

chapter Chapter 10|17 pages

More than code

From genetic reductionism to complex biological systems

chapter Chapter 11|19 pages

Emerging forms of governance in genomics and post-genomics

Structures, trends, perspectives