Tyranny of the gene : personalized medicine and its threat to public health
Edition
First edition.
Publication Information
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.
Physical Description
322 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Summary
"A revelatory account of how power, politics, and greed have placed genomics at the center of American medicine and a clear-eyed look at the unfulfilled promise of "personalized medicine.""--
The United States is embarking on a medical revolution. Supporters of personalized, or precision, medicine--the tailoring of health care to our genomes--have promised to usher in a new era of miracle cures. Advocates of this gene-guided health-care practice foresee a future where skyrocketing costs can be curbed by customization and unjust disparities are vanquished by biomedical breakthroughs. Progress, however, has come slowly, and with a price too high for the average citizen. In Tyranny of the Gene, James Tabery exposes the origin story of personalized medicine--essentially a marketing idea dreamed up by pharmaceutical executives--and traces its path from the Human Genome Project to the present, revealing how politicians, influential federal scientists, biotech companies, and drug giants all rallied behind the genetic hype. The result is a medical revolution that privileges the few at the expense of health care that benefits us all.
Notes
Place of publication from publisher's website.
Contents
- A Tale of Two Revolutions
- The End of a Partnership
- Industry Relationships
- From Artificial Nose to Genomics Juggernaut
- The Politics of the Personal
- Genomics Finds Its Hammer
- DNA's "Dirty Little Secret"
- Disparity in the Genome
- The "Gleevec Scenario".