Genomics, Obesity and the Struggle over Responsibilities (The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics Book 18)

Description

Review From the reviews:“The book collects research in the fields of genomics, medical, and social studies of obesity and food science, and proposes ethical frameworks to resolve some of the more pernicious ethical quandaries at their intersection. In addition to medical researchers of genomics, public health researchers, and social scientists interested in obesity and nutrition in Europe, interested medical and public health ethicists also will benefit from the procedural and substantive frameworks offered for ethical and political decision making.” (Daniel Bustillos, Doody's Book Reviews, February, 2013) From the Back Cover This volume addresses the overlapping aspects of the fields of genomics, obesity and (food) ethics. It is unique in its examination of the implications of genomics for obesity from an ethical perspective. Genomics covers the sciences and technologies involved in the pathways that DNA takes until the organism is completely built and sustained: the range of genes (DNA), transcriptor factors, enhancers, promoters, RNA (copy of DNA), proteins, metabolism of cell, cellular interactions, organisms. Genomics offers a holistic approach, which, when applied to obesity, can have surprising and disturbing implications for the existing networks tackling this phenomenon and for fundamental ethical notions, strategies and practices. In the book several strategies to match genomics, obesity, society and ethics are studied, and a happy match is proposed based on a pragmatist ethical framework. The ethical framework presented is inspired by the interaction between a procedural perspective emphasizing the necessity of consultative and participatory organizational relationships in the new interfaces between (nutri)genomics, medicine and food, and a substantive perspective that both cherishes individual autonomy and embeds it in socio-cultural contexts.