The Human Genome Project and the Future of Health Care

by Murray, Thomas H.; Rothstein, Mark A.; Murray, Robert F., Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780253332134
• ISBN10: 0253332133
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-10-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

This book examines how the Human Genome Project will reshape American health care. Leading scholars explore the clinical, ethical, legal, and policy implications of the Genome Project to see how it may affect the forms of health care available, who delivers it, who receives it, and who pays for it. Genetic prediction of future diseases - whether ineluctable certainties such as Huntington's, or uncertain "predispositions" for cancers, heart disease, and the like - will affect how patients and health professionals interact. It may force major reconsideration of certain institutions - such as health, life, and disability insurance - that rely on information about individuals' risks of illness and death. We may question what valid social purposes those institutions play and whether they are likely to become socially and ethically dysfunctional in light of the more extensive predictions that genetic information may make possible.

Author Biography

THOMAS H. MURRAY is Professor and Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University. MARK A. ROTHSTEIN is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Houston. ROBERT F. MURRAY, JR. is Chief of the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, and Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Genetics at Howard University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Human Genome Project and the Future of Health Care	vii
Thomas H. Murray
The Impact of Mapping the Human Genome on the Patient-Physician Relationship	1	(20)
Albert R. Jonsen
Educating Clinicians about Genetics	21	(18)
Vincent M. Riccardi
Medicine, Gene Therapy, and Society	39	(19)
William J. Polvino
W. French Anderson
The Genome Project and Health Services for Minority Populations	58	(21)
Herbert Nickens
Genetics and Reproductive Decision Making	79	(34)
Mary Anne Bobinski
Access to the Genome and Federal Entitlement Programs	113	(20)
Maxwell J. Mehlman
The Implications of the Human Genome Project for Access to Health Insurance	133	(25)
Deborah A. Stone
Genetics and Employment: More Disability Discrimination	158	(15)
Adrienne Asch
The Human Genome Project and the Distribution of Scarce Medical Resources	173	(23)
Norman Daniels
The Human Genome Project: Its Impact on Medical Practice	196	(13)
Robert F. Murray, Jr.
The Genome and Access to Health Care: Two Key Ethical Issues	209	(15)
Thomas H. Murray
The Genetic Factor in Health Care Reform: Framing the Policy Debate	224	(15)
Mark A. Rothstein
Contributors	239	(4)
Index	243