Detecting the hypersusceptible worker: genetics and politics in industrial medicine

This paper examines the development of the concept of the hypersusceptible worker, as advanced by H. E. Stokinger and his associates. It is argued that this concept enabled industrial toxicologists to organize knowledge about workers' reactions to toxicity so as to sustain a professional and methodological ideology which reflects the relationship between industrial toxicology and capitalist industry. Moreover, it is argued that it is this aspect of hypersusceptibility, rather than its practical utility to specific corporations, that is most important. Constraints on implementation of screening programs based on the ideas of genetic hypersusceptibility are also discussed.