At first glance, the term ‘personalized medicine’ might have a wholly positive connotation. And it should – with the positive intention that has been described by the Personalized Medicine Coalition as “the use of new methods of molecular analysis to better manage a patient’s disease or predisposition to disease,” the European Union as “providing the right treatment to the right patient, at the right dose at the right time,” and the American Medical Association as “health care that is informed by each person’s unique clinical, genetic, and environmental information” (cited in FDA 2013, p. 7), how can there be any issues with this medical model? The truth is, like any other area of healthcare, there are a number of ethical issues involved in …show more content…
According to the FDA, the concept can be traced back to hundreds of years ago. Yet, the science required to advance personalized medicine did not come about until the 19th century when “developments in chemistry, biochemistry, and microscopy allowed scientists to begin to understand the underlying causes of disease” (FDA 2013, p. 5). Of course, there have more advancement in the fields of science and technology, as well as in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. But it was the advent of genetics, imaging, and data mining in the 20th century, and then the observations of any differences an how patients respond to certain drugs halfway through the century that gave way to “a body of research focused on identifying key enzymes that play a role in variation in genetic that is at the foundation for pharmacogenetics. (FDA 2013, p. 5). Pharmacogenetics is “the use of genetic testing to guide drug treatment” and shows how basing the concept of personalization cannot be based solely on an assessment of the human genome alone, as there are other factors involved in creating quality patient care (Burke, Trinidad, & Press,