The Australian government has launched a national inquiry into the legal and ethical issues involved in mapping the building stones of the human body.
Attorney General Daryl Williams and Health Minister Michael Wooldridge said the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Australian Health Ethics Committee would oversee the review, due to be concluded by the end of June, 2002.
"Genetic information has many important scientific and medical applications which are of benefit to the community as a whole," Williams and Wooldridge said in a joint statement.
"However, the government shares the community's concerns that genetic information should be treated sensitively to prevent the potential for abuse or discrimination on the basis of actual or imputed genetic characteristics."
The inquiry will determine whether new laws are required to protect the privacy of human genetic samples and information, to protect them from inappropriate discriminatory use, and to reflect ethical considerations.
Scientists have managed to sequence all the genes in the human body, mapping the three billion letters that make up the human genetic code.
The advance is expected to lead to new ways of treating disease by manipulating genes, but concerns have also been expressed about the potential for ethical abuse, and over the cloning of people.
