The Human Genome and the Human Community

摘要

In 1957, the year I entered college, the American Medical Association issued its "Principles of Medical Ethics." Section 10 stated "The honored ideals of the medical profession imply that the responsibility of the physician extends not only to the individual, but also to society, and these responsibilities deserve his interest and participation in activities that have the purpose of improving both the health and the well-being of the individual and the community [my italics]." Improving the health and well-being of the individual remains an honored ideal of the medical profession, and one that has also served as the guiding principle behind government funding of basic biomedical research. Improving the health of the community, however, has always depended on the shifting fortunes of the very notion of community in our deeply individualistic society, and it remains, in many ways, an ideal more easily articulated than put into practice.