Genetic Governance

Ethical and practical issues around genetic research are of major international concern, both in academia and in the public domain. Questions around 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. This book has been developed out of the Taylor & Francis journal “Critical Public Health”, of which Robin Bunton is the editor. The contributors look at how the ‘new’ genetics and healthcare and health policy arising from it can or should be governed and regulated. Much of the debate about genetics has thus far focused on individualistic ethical issues, while this book takes a broader, international public health approach.

Author Biography

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.