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Human genetic technologies, European governance and the politics of bioethics

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 3, pages 808–814 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

With human genetic technologies now an important area of European research and development, bioethics is becoming increasingly important in its regulation and future. As regulatory decisions are also statements about who should get what, bioethics cannot avoid political controversy. Can bioethics sustain its claimed role as authoritative adviser to decision makers, or will its attempts to reach a consensus on human genetic technologies be perceived as the actions of an ambitious interest group? What, in short, is its political future in Europe and elsewhere?

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council Innovative Health Technologies Research Programme, under which the research project “Governance of Human Genetics” was conducted.

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  1. the University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 6NY, UK

    Brian Salter & Mavis Jones

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  1. Brian Salter
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Correspondence to Brian Salter.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies

Human Genetics Commission

President's Council on Bioethics

Signatories of the Convention on Human Rights & Biomedicine

The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine

The European Union Online

Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights

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Salter, B., Jones, M. Human genetic technologies, European governance and the politics of bioethics. Nat Rev Genet 3, 808–814 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg912

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