The first comprehensive attempt to explore the issues raised by genetic counselling across cultures. It will be of interest to health professionals and to students and lecturers in the social, behavioural and political sciences and in genetics, medicine and nursing. The meaning and relevance of kinship and ethnicity in the context of genetic disease, cultural issues that have arisen in practice, including the influence of the lay public's beliefs about inheritance and the wider social and political context of genetics and genetic disease are all explored in depth.

ANGUS CLARKE is Reader in Clinical Genetics in the Institute of Medical Genetics at the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff. He worked in paediatrics for several years and this led him to develop an interest in inherited disorders that affect children. He has studied some of the social and ethical implications of genetic testing, and was chair of the Clinical Genetics Society Working Party on the genetic testing of children. He has edited a book on the ethical and social aspects of genetic counselling Genetic Counselling: Practice and Principles.

EVELYN PARSONS, a medical sociologist, is Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing Studies and Research Fellow in the Institute of Medical Genetics at the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff. Her publications include papers on the social construction of genetic risk, the psychosocial implications of presymtomatic testing, and the experience of scientists involved in cloning the gene for myotonic dystrophy. Her current research is in newborn screening and familial breast cancer.