| Popis: |
Health care in western industrialized nations is being increasingly swamped by biotechnology. The impact has been considerable. Specializations that were once at the periphery of health care (e.g., gerontology and gene replacement therapy) have been propelled to the center. New ways of classifying people (e.g., surrogate parent) have been invented and other traditional social categories (parent, care-giver, medical discipline) are being rewritten. Clinical conditions are being brought into existence at such a rate that critics caution that even mundane aspects of everyday experience are being pathologized. Finally, the way that we think about health care needs—what we are prepared to count as a need—is now increasingly dependent on judgments about what biotechnology can achieve. |
