Essentially Ours: Assessing the Regulation of the Collection and Use of Health-related Genomic Information

Abstract

Essentially Ours provides an account of the current modes of regulation of health-related genomic samples and data in Australia. This Occasional Paper revisits some of the issues addressed in the 2003 Report, Essentially Yours, authored jointly by the Australian Law Reform Commission and Australian Health Ethics Committee pursuant to a reference from the Commonwealth Government ('Essentially Yours'). Essentially Yours emphasised 'that fundamental human dignity requires that individuals have a high level of control over their own genetic material… and that human genetic information is personal, sensitive, and deserving of a high level of legal protection'. The information presented in this Oc..