Thesis ID: CBB001562763

Genetic Discrimination: Genealogy of an American Problem (2010)

unapi

Childerhose, Janet Elizabeth (Author)


McGill University (Canada)


Publication Date: 2010
Physical Details: 464 pp.
Language: English

Genetic discrimination has been transformed from an isolated concern of a handful of professionals into a pressing civil rights and public policy problem in the United States over the last twenty years. My dissertation is a genealogical account of how genetic discrimination has been shaped into a problem of this stature. It answers two questions: Where did the problem come from? How has the problem changed over time? In Part One, I trace the history of concerns about discrimination from the 1970s to the present. Drawing from oral histories with key actors and organizations that shaped early public understanding of the problem, I show that concerns about genetic discrimination originated in diverse practices. These practices include workplace genetic screening, insurer discrimination against individuals with AIDS, the rapid commercialization of genetic tests in the 1980s, and health care reform. In Part Two, I present findings from a three-year ethnographic study of public policy hearings on genomic medicine in the United States that illustrate how new actors have been defining the problem of genetic discrimination since 1995. The hearings of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society were a site where participants legitimized genetic discrimination as a civil rights problem and developed lobbying tools to persuade Congress to pass federal nondiscrimination legislation. Participants framed fear of discrimination as a barrier to the nation's scientific progress and a significant threat to the lives of Americans. I use the construct of genomic citizenship to draw out claims about the rights and duties of Americans in contemporary discourse on genetic discrimination. Passing federal nondiscrimination legislation is one way in which the civil rights of Americans appear to be expanding, while their responsibilities to act genetically are increasing. Advocates of nondiscrimination legislation, who use the language of genetic defect to argue that everyone is vulnerable to discrimination, geneticize all Americans by enrolling them into the biosociality of the flawed, transparent genome, with attendant duties. What these advocates do not also champion is the right of Americans to refuse to think or act genetically.

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Description Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. : doc. no. NR66431.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001562763/

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Authors & Contributors
Kurtulmus, A Faik
Irzik, Gürol
Yahya Shamekhi
Justin J. W. Powell
Yuan Chih Fu
David P. Baker
Concepts
Public policy
Science and government
Science and politics
Research institutes; research stations
Government sponsored science
Science and society
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
United States
Germany
Great Britain
Japan
Italy
Australia
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