APPENDIX 27
Memorandum by Nuffield Council on Bioethics
(PI 102)
REFERRING TO
THE TERM
OF REFERENCE:
THE PROVISION
OF DRUG
INFORMATION AND
PROMOTION
1. In October 2002, the Nuffield Council
on bioethics published a report on Genetics and human behaviour:
the ethical context. It recommended that health service providers,
and in particular the Department of Health, specifically charge
a named agency with monitoring and, if necessary, controlling,
the deliberate medicalising of normal populations. The Council
noted that any discovery of biological mechanisms that influence
behaviour, including genes, may aid the development of drugs which
modify behaviour. The Council concluded that there is potential
for the unhelpful widening of diagnostic categories, to encourage
the use of medication by people who would not necessarily be thought
of as exhibiting behavioural traits outside the normal range.
This development could have deleterious effects, such as a shift
in the boundary between normal variation and disorder further
away form the extremes of variation, the reduction of social tolerance,
the routine selection of genetic or medical interventions without
adequate consideration being given to environmental interventions
and other options, and unnecessary increased expenditure by the
health service.
2. The relevant extract from the Report
is Annexed.
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