Public Consultation on Medical Profiling and Online Medicine

April 28, 2009

Launch of consultation on medical profiling and online medicine: the ethics of ‘personalised’ health care in a consumer age 

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is holding a public consultation on the ethical issues raised by online healthcare, telemedicine and commercial medical profiling technologies such as DNA testing and body imaging. These technologies and services are increasingly focused on the individual, and often mean that the GP is no longer involved in healthcare.

The Council would like to hear the views of a wide range of people, including those using or contemplating using these services, those involved in providing them in the public and private context, researchers, academics, regulators, policy makers and others. Responses to the consultation will be carefully considered, and a report setting out the Council’s findings will be published in spring 2010.

Deadline for responses: 21^st July 2009

Find out more: www.nuffieldbioethics.org/go/ourwork/personalisedhealthcare/page_968.html

Related media coverage:

The Times:
Ethics inquiry to judge challenges of genetic testing
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6135597.ece

 BBC Online News
Fears over web health revolution
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8008361.stm

Telegraph
Expensive private health MOTs could be doing ‘more harm than good’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5189417/Expensive-private-health-MOTs-could-be-doing-more-harm-than-good.html