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You are in Human Genetics

Human Genetics

The Government believes that one day everyone will have a complete reading of their genetic make-up and the diseases they will get will be predicted and prevented. Lifestyle advice, medication and perhaps the food you eat would be tailored to your individual genes. Read why such genetic horoscopes are a dangerous myth.

Britain's police DNA database is the largest in the world and other genetic databases are planned for medical research. These databases raise important issues about privacy and rights.

GeneWatch would like to see:

• Regulation of genetic testing, so that it is used only in situations where it is of benefit to health and ethically justified.
• Legal safeguards to prevent genetic discrimination and erosion of privacy and civil rights.
• Public involvement in setting the health research agenda and restrictions on commercial conflicts of interest (including an end to the patenting of genes).

Recent Articles

• GeneWatch PR: Twins study obesity claims irresponsible, says GeneWatch UK
  7th February 2008

• GeneWatch UK response to MHRA consultation
  29th October 2007

• GeneWatch PR: Regulation needed to prevent human genome from becoming massive marketing scam
  29th October 2007

• GeneWatch PR: GeneWatch response to the Nuffield report on forensic use of DNA
  18th September 2007

• GeneWatch UK Submission to the Discrimination Law Review
  7th August 2007

• Scientific paper by GeneWatch's HM Wallace
  

  This scientific paper looks at how data from twins and families is analysed. It concludes that the usual method is likely to exaggerate the importance of genetic differences in common diseases such as cancer. Breast cancer, for example, could often run in families because family members are exposed to the same environmental or lifestyle factors, rather than because relatives share some of their genes. If so, expensive research studies may be looking for "susceptibility genes" which do not exist or will be impossible to find.

• Briefing note for MPs, MSPs, AMs & MLAs. DNA: proposed expansions of powers
  26th March 2007

• Briefing for Councillors and Police Authorities: Police retention of DNA
  23rd February 2007

• Briefing 36 A Review of 2006
  25th January 2007

• GeneWatch PR: Prime Minister unscientific about science: GeneWatch UK response to PM's speech on science and the economy
  3rd November 2006

• GeneWatch PR: New controls needed to maintain independence of science: research shows scientists fail to disclose financial interests in the journal, Nature
  2nd November 2006

• GeneWatch PR: Citizens or suspects? GeneWatch response to the launch of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics' consultation on police use of DNA
  1st November 2006

• GeneWatch PR: GeneWatch UK response to Scottish Parliament's vote on police retention of DNA.
  25th May 2006

• GeneWatch PR: GeneWatch response to new proposals for police retention of DNA in Scotland.
  22nd May 2006

• GeneWatch PR: Diets tailored to your genes are false solution to disease, says new GeneWatch report.
  16th May 2006

• GeneWatch PR: UK Biobank based on false assumptions and a waste of public money, says GeneWatch
  15th March 2006

• Briefing 35: Nutrigenomics: the future of nutrition?
  1st March 2006

  The new science of 'nutrigenomics' (nutritional genomics) and the idea of 'personalised nutrition' are being promoted as the solution to chronic diet-related diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Personalised nutrition includes the idea of recommending dietary advice, supplements and new 'functional foods' to healthy people who are identified as genetically susceptible to future illness using genetic tests. This briefing asks whether tailoring our diets to our individual genetic make-up, or to other individual biological differences, will be good for health.
  

• GeneWatch PR: Misleading benefits claimed for police retention of innocent people's DNA, says new GeneWatch report
  27th February 2006

• GeneWatch PR: Keep Genetic Testing Private - Health and Human Rights at Risk - say leading disability, health and human rights groups
  14th February 2006

• Briefing 34: Genetic technologies: a review of developments in 2005
  1st February 2006

  In 2005, the fortunes of GM crops and foods remained stagnant. As in previous years, there has been an increase in the area of GM crops being grown, but largely in Brazil. No new GM traits have come to the market. Major shortcomings in the management of GM crops were exposed when it was revealed that Syngenta had 'muddled up' one variety of GM maize with another, leading to an unapproved GM crop being grown and exported from North America undetected for four years. In the field of human genetics, much continues to be promised, but little has been delivered. Considerable investment is being made in the search for genes linked to susceptibility to common complex diseases, despite evidence that environmental, social and economic factors are much more important.  This briefing examines the major issues in genetic technologies that emerged in 2005.

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Topics

• Genes and Health

  Read GeneWatch UK's 2006 report and briefing on your diet and your genes.

• Genes and Marketing

  Genetic testing companies can sell gene tests without any regulation of the claims they make. Scientists from the Netherlands and from the US National Office of Public Health Genomics have published an investigation of seven companies highlighted by GeneWatch as selling misleading gene tests. They concluded that "There is insufficient scientific evidence to conclude that genomic profiles are useful in measuring genetic risk for common diseases or in developing personalized diet and lifestyle recommendations for disease prevention". UK scientists and medics have also warned that "There is a growing business selling new genetic tests based on very preliminary research - the evidence is far too flimsy to be accepted by evidence-based medical practice".

• Privacy and Discrimination

  The use of genetic tests by insurers and employers. The police national DNA database.

• Genetic Research

  Who decides what medical research is done? Includes information on UK Biobank.

• Reproductive Genetics

  Should we test the genes of IVF embryos and should we clone human embryos for medical research?