IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/scippl/v33y2006i8p585-600.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Genetic exceptionalism’ and precautionary politics: Regulating for uncertainty in Britain's genetics and insurance policy process

Author

Listed:
  • James Mittra

Abstract

This article critically investigates the role ‘genetic exceptionalism’ and precautionary politics played in the British policy process that resulted in a moratorium on insurers' rights to use certain types of genetic information in underwriting decisions. The article evaluates the recommendations of key advisory committees and regulatory bodies as they tried to construct fair and pragmatic policies in a context of great social, commercial and technological uncertainty. It suggests that in trying to meet the needs of political expediency — responding to broader concern that access to life assurance might be significantly restricted in an age of increased genetic knowledge — policy-makers and regulators marginalised evidence that negated fears of an emerging genetic underclass by adopting a precautionary approach to genetic risk and exclusion. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Suggested Citation

  • James Mittra, 2006. "‘Genetic exceptionalism’ and precautionary politics: Regulating for uncertainty in Britain's genetics and insurance policy process," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(8), pages 585-600, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:33:y:2006:i:8:p:585-600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.3152/147154306781778713
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:33:y:2006:i:8:p:585-600. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/spp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.