IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v47y1998i9p1189-1195.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethics, epidemiology and the thrifty gene: biological determinism as a health hazard

Author

Listed:
  • McDermott, Robyn

Abstract

This paper briefly describes the rise of the thrifty genotype hypothesis as an explanation for the late twentieth century epidemic of diabetes, particularly in post-colonial indigenous societies. It looks at some of the ethical consequences of the biological deterministic paradigm, particularly the popular confusion of "genes" with "race" and how this paradigm served to exclude consideration of social determinants of disease in epidemiological thinking. Some alternative hypotheses to the thrifty gene theory are explored, together with the consequences of acceptance of these other theories in terms of public health action. Finally, there is a need for epidemiology to be continually conscious, critical and transparent with respect to the general disease (and wellness) theory under which it operates if it is to be truly a science rather than a collection of methodologies.

Suggested Citation

  • McDermott, Robyn, 1998. "Ethics, epidemiology and the thrifty gene: biological determinism as a health hazard," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1189-1195, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:47:y:1998:i:9:p:1189-1195
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(98)00191-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fee, Margery, 2006. "Racializing narratives: Obesity, diabetes and the "Aboriginal" thrifty genotype," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(12), pages 2988-2997, June.
    2. Everett, Margaret, 2011. "They say it runs in the family: Diabetes and inheritance in Oaxaca, Mexico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1776-1783, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:47:y:1998:i:9:p:1189-1195. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.