2000 Articles

The Human Genome and the Human Community

Pollack, Robert

In fact. disease, morbidity, and mortality are generated by a mix of environment and genetic propensity. The surge of interest in genetic medicine has ied us to forget that we are each part of the environment of a host of strangers. and that this crowd is part of our own environment in tum. Our society seems best able to remember this fact and accept its responsibility for simple preventive medicine only when a contagious disease threatens. To put the case most simply. we are in each others· hands at all times. not just when contagion threatens. A medicine that waits to treat people one at a time is defaulting on the responsibility each of us has to preserve not only our own health but the health of perfect strangers as well.