Boxing and the Medical View

A series of articles in the Journal of Medical Ethics discusses the role of the medical profession in how boxing is administrated. The first is by Sokol who argues that the profession should be limited to providing advice and information about the risks of boxing, rather than to campaign for it to be banned.

Perhaps the most interesting article is by Spriggs who discusses the prospect of compulsory genetic tests for boxers as a way of deciding whether they should be granted a license. This matter has been raised elsewhere in the British J of Sports Medicine and in the Australian Law Reforms Commission report, 'Essentially Yours'. Since the significance of such genetic information is widely disputed, its role in determining what kind of sports people can play is certainly controversial.