Elsevier

Endeavour

Volume 23, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 159-161
Endeavour

What is a genetic test, and why does it matter?

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-9327(99)80038-6Get rights and content

Abstract

How the term ‘genetic test’ is defined, matters for social policy. The past few years have witnessed many efforts to enact legal barriers specifically against genetic discrimination. To the extent that information derived from genetic tests receives special protection, both enthusiasts for genetic medicine and those who stress its perils have an incentive to adopt a broad interpretation of genetic testing. However, the consequences have not always been those anticpated.

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    Diane Paul is Professor of Political Science and co-Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Values at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She is author of Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995) and The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate (1998), and is currently collaborating with Paul Edelson on a book on the history of newborn screening for phenylketonuria.

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