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Will the genetic individualization of disease force a new paradigm?
1Division of Hematology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
Comptes Rendus De L'Academie Des Sciences. Serie III, Sciences De La Vie
|February 27, 1999
Abstract:
Disease, through the ages, has been considered as a 'visitation' from afar to the body or as 'disequilibrium' of an internal order. In practical terms, these two concepts of disease have generated a nosology, that is a classification of disease states. Genetics, in its dazzling recent advances, has opened another conceptual framework: disease is an individual event, inasmuch as our growing understanding of the genetic 'terrain' makes all subjects true individuals. Hence, it is time to abandon the old conceptual dichotomy for a Hegelian synthesis: there are no diseases (either as visitation or disequilibrium) only diseased individuals.