Description: As DNA forensic profiling and databasing become established as key technologies in the toolbox of the forensic sciences, their expanding use raises important issues that promise to touch everyone's lives. In an authoritative global investigation of a diverse range of countries, including those at the forefront of these technologies' development and use, this book identifies and provides critical reflection upon the many issues of privacy; distributive justice; DNA information system ownership; biosurveillance; function creep; the reliability of collection, storage and analysis of DNA profiles; the possibility of transferring medical DNA information to forensics databases; and democratic involvement and transparency in governance, an emergent key theme. This book is timely and significant in providing the essential background and discussion of the ethical, legal and societal dimensions for academics, practitioners, public interest and criminal justice organisations, and students of the life sciences, law, politics, and sociology.
Brief description: Barbara Prainsack is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Biomedicine and Society (CBAS) at King's College London, UK. A political scientist by training, her research focuses on how politics, bioscience, religion and 'culture' mutually shape each other, and how they interact with how we understand ourselves as human beings, persons, and citizens. Her research on regulatory and societal aspects of human cloning, stem cell research, and DNA testing (both medical and forensic) has featured in national and international media such as BBC News, ABC National Radio (Australia), and Die Zeit. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of Science as Culture and Personalized Medicine, and a member of the National Bioethics Commission in Austria.
Review Quotes: "Genetic Suspects is both interesting and thought-provoking. This compilation of essays makes Genetic Suspects an interesting read for anyone interested in the growing use of DNA evidence in legal systems around the world."
Shelby Montague, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine