Biomedicine law to be adopted by five countries

The first European legal text on biomedicine will be incorporated into five countries' domestic law in December. The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine is designed to protect against the misuse of biological and medical developments and was agreed by the Council of Europe after several years of debate. The Convention will become legally binding in Denmark, Greece, San Marino, Slovakia and Slovenia. As well as setting out major principles, the text includes bans on discrimination based on a person's genetic make-up and on the use of predictive genetic tests for non-medical reasons. The Convention will also make illegal the creation of human embryos for research and will prohibit financial gain from the donation of any part of the human body.