ANDREW WEBSTER is Director of the Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU), and Head of the Department of Sociology, University of York, UK. He directed the Innovative Health Technologies Programme and leads a UK social science research initiative on stem cells. His next book will be Health, Technology and Society: A Sociological Critique, also to be published by Palgrave Macmillan.

'The book reviews innovative health technologies and associated everyday practices of health as expressions of social relationships...[it] draws a complex map of relationships that sketches the state of the literature on sociological studies on health and technology today [and] will be particularly appealing to academics with advanced knowledge of the field of sociology of health and illness.' - Sociology

• List of Tables LIst of Figures Acknowldgements Series Editors' Preface List of Contributions New Technologies in Health Care: Opening the Black Bag: A.Webster PART 1: GENETIC RISK, REPRODUCTION AND IDENTITY The Genetic Iceberg: Risk and Uncertainty: A.Bharadwaj, L.Prior, P.Atkinson, A.Clarke & M.Worwood Navigating the Troubled Waters of Prenatal Testing Decisions: G.Lewando-Hundt, J.Green, J.Sandall & J.Hewison Genetic Ambivalence: Expertise, Uncertainty, and Communication in the Context of New Genetic Technologies: A.Kerr & S.Franklin PART 2: INFORMATION AND EMPOWERMENT 'Pathways to the Doctor' in the Information Age: The Role of ICTS in Contemporary Lay Referral Systems; S.Nettleton & G.Hanlon Desperately Seeking Certainty: Bone Densitometry, The Internet and Healthcare Contexts; E.Green, F.Griffiths, F.Henwood & S.Wyatt Telemedicine, Telecare, and the Future Patient: Innovation, Risk And Governance; T.Finch, C.May, M.Mort & F.Mair Patient 'Expertise' and Innovative Health Technologies; K.Ward, M.Davis & P.Flowers Making Sense of Mediated Information: Empowerment and Dependency; J.Cullen & S.Cohn PART 3: INNOVATION, CONTEXT AND MEANING Time, Place and Settings: Negotiating Birth, Childhood and Death; J.Seymour, E.Ettorre, J.Heaton, G.Lankshear, D.Mason & J.Noyes Replacing Hips and Lenses: Surgery, Industry and Innovation in Post War Britain; J.S.Metcalfe & J.Pickstone Access, Agency and Normality: The Wheelchair and the Internet as Mediators of Disability; S.Parr, N.Watson & B.Woods PART 4: REGULATION AND EVALUATION OF IHTS Understanding the 'Productivity Crisis' in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Over-Regulation or Lack of Innovation?; P.Martin, J.Abraham, C.Davis & A.Kraft Regulating Hybridity: Policing Pollution in Tissue Engineering and Transpecies Transplantation; N.Brown, A.Faulkner, J.Kent & M.Michael Cultural Politics and Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science; B.Salter Regulation and the Positioning of Complementary and Alternative Medicine; J.Chatwin & P.Tovey Evaluation as an Innovative Health Technology; D.Armstrong Blibliography Index