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Title details for Tyranny of the Gene by James Tabery - Available

Tyranny of the Gene

Personalized Medicine and Its Threat to Public Health

by James Tabery
George Newbern
Audiobook
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A revelatory account of how power, politics, and greed have placed the unfulfilled promise of personalized medicine at the center of American 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.
Now American health care, driven by the commercialization of biomedical research, is shifting focus away from the study of the social and environmental determinants of health, such as access to fresh and nutritious food, exposure to toxic chemicals, and stress caused by financial insecurity. Instead, it is increasingly investing in “miracle pills” for leukemia that would bankrupt most users, genetic studies of minoritized populations that ignore structural racism and walk dangerously close to eugenic conclusions, and oncology centers that advertise the perfect gene-drug match, igniting a patient’s hope, and often dashing it later.Tyranny of the Gene sounds a warning cry about the current trajectory of health care and charts a path to a more equitable alternative.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 15, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593741726
      • File size: 261365 KB
      • Duration: 09:04:30

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 26, 2023
      The quest for medical treatments tailored to patients’ genomes distracts from more effective means of addressing health problems, according to this incisive polemic. Tabery (Beyond Versus), a philosophy professor at the University of Utah, contends that “for most diseases, taking steps to prevent the development of illness is both more effective and more cost-efficient than trying to cure the disease after it arrives.” To illustrate, he notes that erlotinib, an expensive drug developed to treat lung cancer patients who match a particular genetic profile, only extends people’s lives by a few months and the resources that went into it could have instead been directed toward lowering environmental radon levels, removing asbestos, and implementing other prevention strategies. Tabery is a penetrating critic, positing that research on personalized drugs takes up an oversize share of funding because it’s more profitable than investigating environmental determinants of health. He also drives home the stakes of a disproportionate focus on genes, contending that the National Institutes of Health’s research into genomic explanations for poor health outcomes in Black communities obscures the wealth of research showing that environmental pollutants and lack of access to nutritious food are primary drivers of heart disease and diabetes. This damning take on scientific bias is not to be missed. Photos.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      George Newbern provides a clear, thoughtful listening experience. Given the depth of the information provided, listeners benefit from his approach. Tabery's audiobook addresses the ascension of health care that is focused on individuals--or so called "personalized medicine." While the appeal of person-centered care is evident, the lack of focus on larger environmental forces is troubling. Towns located near hazardous chemical-based industries that go unchecked, for example, greatly contribute to systemic illness in ways that can't be treated with individualized models of care. Also, as private companies promise deep insights through DNA analysis, all that data-mining comes at a cost to consumers. Newbern conveys these issues in a warm, almost story-telling, manner. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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