Chemical dissection and the ethics of preclinical science

It is my contention in this paper that the bioethical landscape is closely linked to the model of health and disease with which we work, as scientists or as medical practitioners. The Human Genome Project is the logical extension of the dissection process, which has constituted the history of medical science. It is already revealing an ethical minefield which may result in harming the very people we need to serve. Adoption of more holistic models of health and disease would counter the reductionist drift into eugenics, and would place the practice of medical science more humbly within a wider context, as the servant of the patient, rather than as the sole arbiter of health and social aceptability.