Dangerous Diagnostics: The Social Power of Biological Information

by Dorothy Nelkin, Laurence Tancredi

Overview

Dangerous Diagnostics is a powerful study of the pervasiveness of diagnostic testing and the potential it offers institutions to classify, categorize, and ultimately control individuals. Nelkin and Tancredi explore the ethical, social, and legal implications of cutting-edge technologies that can lead to new forms of discrimination in the name of standardized, objective measurements. They caution against the creation of an underclass deemed unemployable, untrainable, or uninsurable by such diagnostic tests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226571294
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	03/01/1994
Edition description:	1
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Dorothy Nelkin is professor in the Department of Sociology and in the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at Cornell University. She is the author of The Creation Controversy, Controversy: Politics of Technical Decisions, and Science as Intellectual Property. Michael S. Brown is research associate at the Center for the Study of Drug Development at Tufts University.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 1994 Edition
Preface

Chapter 1. The New Diagnostics
The Cultural Appeal of Testing
Metaphors of the Body and Mind
Institutional Uses of Tests

Chapter 2. Defining Diagnosis
The Uses of Diagnosis
Research Developments and Diagnostic Trends
Commercial Development

Chapter 3. Interpreting Tests
Interpretive Assumptions
Reliability of Tests
Beyond the Clinical Context

Chapter 4. Diagnosis in the Health Care System
Pressures on the Health Care Delivery System
The Changing Structure of Health Care Delivery
Litigation
Existing Strategies to Meet Institutional Needs
Restricting Access
Efficiency Techniques: Algorithms
Using Consulting Psychiatrists
The Use of New Diagnostic Technologies
Genetic Testing and Counseling
Psychiatric Evaluations and the Definition of "Normal Behavior"
Patient Profiling and the Use of Tests for Economic Testing
The Growth of Medical Control

Chapter 5. Testing in the Workplace: Predicting Performance and Health
Pressures on the Firm
The Company as Insurer
Strategies
Placing Responsibility on the Worker
Empowering Corporate Medical Services
Predicting Proneness to Disease
Excluding People from Work
New Biological Testing Techniques
Chromosomal Monitoring
Genetic Screening
Genetic Struggles
Chapter 6. The Schools: Testing for Learning Problems
Social Pressures on the Schools
Accountability
Meeting Legislative Demands
Current Strategies
Standardized Tests
Prescribing Drugs
Emerging Biological Explanations and Diagnostic Advances
Classification and Control
 
Chapter 7. The Medical Empowering of Legal Institutions
Pressures and Demands
Defining Criminal Responsibility: The Insanity Defense
Assuring Efficiency: Administrative Strains on the Courts
Existing Strategies
Medicalization
The Search for Scientific Evidence
New Technologies and Future Developments
 
Chapter 8. Social Control Through Biological Tests
Institutional Conformity and the Use of Tests
Professionals as Institutional Agents
Biological Discrimination
 
Glossary
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

Sociologist Nelkin and law professor Tancredi ask the old question, ``What are they keeping in our files?'' about a panoply of new information that falls under the rubric of personal biochemistry, including genetic testing, brain chemistry studies, and hereditary predisposition to conditions such as heart disease. The authors say that medical test results are finding their way into personnel files, school records, insurance company data banks, and courtrooms and are too incompletely understood, wrongly applied, or used for the wrong reasons. Particularly well-reasoned in its analysis of biological data in the courtroom, this book is slightly ahead of its time and should have a place in collections on the cutting edge of social issues. Well-documented, but, alas, no bibliography, just end notes.-- Mark L. Shelton, Columbus, Ohio

Library Journal

An in-depth description of how new biological tests such as DNA mapping and PET scans are being used--and perhaps misused--in places far removed from where they were first developed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews