Just Genes: The Ethics of Genetic Technologies

This book is a timely overview of topics relevant to emerging genetic technologies and the ways individuals and society may be confronted with the issues that arise. The author states in the introduction that “The central aim of this book is to explore what values, ethical principles, and assumptions underlie the many and varied policy questions that arise from determining how best to integrate genetic innovations into practice.” Further, she states that she hopes the book will “sharpen the reader’s critical and analytic faculties to better evaluate ongoing issues.” Her stated desire is to create a better informed citizenry who can make more informed personal and policy choices. Her goals are education about genetic technologies, but also to provide a way of thinking about the related ethical issues. Toward those goals, in the first chapter, Barash provides an introduction to basic genetic principles and terminology as well as a history of genetic screening and testing in the United States. She introduces some of the ethical issues associated with genetic technologies such as an individual’s and society’s duties and obligations towards one another, threats to autonomous decision making about genetic testing, the possibility of genetic discrimination, the ideal of informed consent and the problem of equal access to technologies. The second chapter provides a description of some of the main theories of ethical analysis, such as theories of consequentialism, deontology, rights, intuitionism, justice and altruism. The ideas of autonomy, beneficence, justice and informed consent are introduced. The third chapter on genetic privacy and discrimination is the longest in the book and includes history, examples and scenarios for thought. The following chapters include topics such as behavioral genetics, pharmacogenetics, genetic research, genetically modified foods, stem cells and cloning. Each chapter includes discussion of the relevant ethical issues, history, future concerns and often scenarios to help the reader further consider the issues. The author is successful in meeting the stated goals of the book. She provides an overview of many topics in a straightforward and understandable manner. While most genetic counselors would find the information contained in this book a review, the content is very appropriate for genetic counseling students, a general audience of undergraduate students, graduate students in other health care fields, business professionals in non-health care related industry as well as other lay audiences. Given the stated goals of the book, the second chapter on ethical theories seemed particularly brief, but the theories that were presented were incorporated throughout remaining chapters to reinforce the learning. Due to the fact that GINA became law shortly after the publishing of this book, the third chapter on genetic discrimination is already out-dated. However, the author does include mention of GINA and its possible implications. Genetic counseling is given passing reference several times in the book, but there is no explanation of the education, training, roles or ways genetic counselors help people manage ethical issues. At the end of the book there are exercises that correlate to the concepts discussed in some of the chapters. Most of the exercises are useful learning tools, with the exception of the exercise for chapter 6 which seems overly complicated and difficult to carry out. Although the book would have benefited from better editing (there were a number of misspellings and omitted words throughout), the glossary of terms and J Genet Counsel (2009) 18:101–102 DOI 10.1007/s10897-008-9185-9