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Interrelationships among Native Peoples, Genetic Research, and the Landscape: Need for Further Research into Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Mervyn L. Tano
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Extract

During the past four years, the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management has sponsored and co-sponsored a series of discursive roundtables on the ethical, legal, social, and cultural implications of genetic research on Indian tribes and Indian people. The deliberations of the tribal leaders, legal scholars, researchers, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and others who participated in these roundtables laid out a range of barriers to informed tribal participation in genetic research and proposed a policy, legal, and scientific research agenda to fill gaps in knowledge and to otherwise support indigenous peoples' decision-making on genetic research issues.

An understanding of Native American attitudes toward genetic research on their community cannot be fully understood absent an appreciation of the interrelationship among native peoples, genetic research, and the landscape, contaminated as it is by governmental and other factors. The deliberations described herein present invaluable insights into tribal attitudes toward genetic research that have application to ethical, legal and social aspects of forensic DNA databanks, sample collection and retention, and, in particular, issues of secondary non-forensic uses of such DNA.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Summer 2006 , pp. 301 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

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