The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine
Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12209607 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jackie Leach Scully (0000-0002-7637-1225, Newcastle University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 402-403 |
| Publication date | 2007-06-28 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social History of Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0951-631X • E-ISSN: 1477-4666 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/shm/hkm050 |
| OpenAlex | W2034966423 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
The ‘genetic revolution’ that was supposed to transform medicine over the last quarter century has so far been underwhelming as revolutions go. Promises that killer diseases would be wiped out, defective genes targeted for treatment, and new drugs tailored to individual genetic profiles, have not (yet) been fulfilled. Meanwhile, the field has accumulated a small but not insignificant history of failure and scandals. What has genuinely been transformed are some of the ways we think about human disease and non-disease characteristics. This change is reflected in the recent extensive writing about the potential social implications of the new genetic knowledge; this must indeed be one of the most well scrutinised epistemological shifts in history. But there has been surprisingly little written about genetic disease in its full cultural or historical context, in the world beyond the interaction between patient, clinician and research scientist. It takes the appearance of a book like this to highlight how little we actually know of the ways that societies, and particular cultural or ethnic groups within them, make sense of the phenomenon of hereditary disease
Context (archaeology · Disease · Dream · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethnic group · Pathology · Phenomenon · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Anthropology · Medicine · Psychology · Race, Genetics, and Society · History · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.22 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2008 - 2025 (18) |
| Highly cited | No |