Genetic Governance : Health, Risk and Ethics in a Biotech Era

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.

Robin Bunton is Professor of Sociology at the University of Teeside. He has previously worked as a researcher and practitioner in the public health field and published widely in the sociology of health.

Alan Petersen is Professor of Sociology at the Univeristy of Plymouth. He has researched and published widely in the sociology of health and illness, and more specifically in the sociology of the new genetics.