The Terrible Gift: The Brave New World of Genetic Medicine

A provocative, cautionary exploration of the onrushing revolution in health care: its science-fiction benefits, its hidden dangers, and the disturbing choices it will force us all to make.

The mapping of the human genome and other biological breakthroughs will have startling practical implications for every one of us. In the past, the physician's art has been devoted to making sick people well. The medicine of the future will be far better at curing illness, but it will also be increasingly dedicated to making well people better-sexier, happier, prettier, smarter-and to generating incredible profits for its practitioners and their corporate sponsors.

Some fruits of the new genetic medicine will be unmixed blessings; others imply a chilling redefinition of what it means to be human. And all will impose enormous costs on society. Social and economic inequality will worsen as the medical haves outperform, outcompete, and outlive the have-nots. The profit imperative will foster ever-costlier biological upgrades in place of safer, simpler, natural alternatives. Through patents and commercialization of research, a handful of corporations will come to control huge swaths of the human genome. And health care costs will continue to grow.

The Terrible Gift is an essential primer to the crucial choices we already face as both citizens and consumers of health care.

Rick J. Carlson, J.D., is president of The Health Strategies Group, a consultant to major health care organizations, HMOs, foundations, and governments. He is the author of The End of Medicine. Gary Stimeling is a free-lance writer specializing in topics related to medicine, health care, and the psychology of healing. Formerly working as Gary Selden, he ghost-wrote Love, Medicine & Miracles for Dr. Bernie Siegel, co-wrote The Body Electric with Dr. Robert O. Becker, and wrote Aphrodisia: A Guide to Sexual Foods, Herbs, and Drugs.