Genetics and prevention: a policy in the making

This article explores the processes through which the advances of genetic research areincorporated into public health care in Denmark. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in cancergenetic counselling, the implementation of new medical advances is investigated by following theestablishment of a policy on informing relatives at risk of hereditary cancer. This case materialprovides the occasion to examine how policies are shaped in a governmental process throughwhich different actors seek to establish a common goal for a specific health practice. The struggleto define such a goal implies a struggle to define where to draw the line between health anddisease and what makes up a healthy person in the context of genetic knowledge. The authorsargue that in the process of establishing a policy in the field of cancer genetics the imperative ofprevention comes to provide the framework within which an ethics of rights and responsibilitiesis constituted and the target group of cancer genetic counselling defined. This ethics is notdetermined by or inherent in genetic technology itself, but constituted in a social process andtherefore negotiated within pre-existing frameworks of understanding in professional practice