COURTS
Henry M. Butzel. The Edwin Mellon Press, Lewiston, NY, 1987.801 pp. $89.95.
Knowledge about genetics is accumulating so rapidly that it is not surprising that our court system does not keep pace. In this book, Henry M. Butzel illustrates convincingly the wide gap between the use and misuse of genetic technology and jurisprudential decision making.
Butzel covers many disparate areas of genetics—ranging from patenting recombinant microorganisms to the genetic effects of radiation, surrogate motherhood and the IQ-race controversy. Twenty-eight topics are addressed in 13 chapters, with citations and discussions of more than 500 legal cases.
As our entire genetic makeup becomes widely available (through the human genome sequencing project), it is safe to predict that the courts will be inundeted with new legal cases concerning the prevention of diseases and defects that were heretofore not possible. This will place a tremendous burden on the medical profession to keep up...
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