The Lifetime Achievement Award is the top prize given by the American Society of Human Genetics. The award is presented annually to recognize substantial and far-reaching scientific contributions to human genetics, carried out over a sustained period of scientific inquiry and productivity. The recipient is presented with an engraved medal and a monetary award of... Read More
ASHG denounces the misuse of genetics to feed racist ideologies, and affirms that the research community should be clear about genetic knowledge related to ancestry and genomic diversity. Any attempt to use genetics to rank populations demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics. Related: AJHG Perspective: ASHG Denounces Attempts to Link Genetics and Racial Supremacy (November... Read More
In 2018, a legislative amendment was proposed that would protect the genetic privacy of immigrant families by restricting the use of their genetic material and data to helping reunify family members. The amendment would require that government officials restrict their use of DNA analysis to when it is truly needed and ensure that biological samples... Read More
Written by Nascent Transcript writer Allison McCague August 2018 May 21 of this year marked the tenth anniversary of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a landmark piece of legislation that Senator Ted Kennedy—one of the sponsors of the bill—called “the first civil rights bill of the new century of the life sciences.” GINA’s passage was the... Read More
In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) invited comments on its intention to exempt a list of class II devices from premarket notification requirements, including tests assessing genetic health risks. ASHG responded to this request for comment by outlining its support for regulation that brings scientifically valid, evidence-based tests to market, and expressing... Read More