Lee (2017) calls for greater attention to the shared epistemological and normative grounds of both public health ethics and environmental ethics, and to Potter’s original conception of bioethics, which, as she rightly observes, has been largely disregarded in contemporary North American bioethics scholarship and practice. In a previous publication we also argued in favor of reviving the Potterian approach to bioethics; we built a case grounded in “the relatively new field of molecular epigenetics [that] provides novel information that should serve (...) as additional justification for expanding the scope of bioethics to include environmental and public health concerns.”. (shrink)

This article offers an overview of the risks related to some representations of epigenetics in the process of making social and medical recommendations. After exploring different representations of epigenetics in popular literature and media discourses, I identify some of the premature conclusions that could emerge from such discourses, stressing issues related to parental responsibility—especially as they relate to women—regarding the transmission of epigenetic marks. I then propose some epistemological considerations regarding developmental biology in order to draw a more nuanced picture (...) of epigenetic responsibility. I argue that such considerations are important to clarify our general understanding of epigenetic research as well as its potential translation outside the scientific area. (shrink)

Due to the recent gains in biomedical sciences, the fetus1 is more exposed and subjected to increasing possibilities of intervention, becoming a full-fledged patient, and entering more often into a...

How do the experiences of people who undergo extreme suffering and trauma in one generation get passed on to the next generation? And how do these experiences affect religious–spiritual beliefs and practices? Can we help to create resilience in these later generations through these religious–spiritual beliefs? In order to answer these questions, one must remember and understand not only how trauma is embodied and inherited, but also the role that religious beliefs and practices play in facing and overcoming the trauma. (...) People who have experienced trauma can pass on the effects to subsequent generations biologically through epigenetic changes to their DNA, but also through their religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. The ways people remember and recover from trauma involve complex biological, psychosocial, and spiritual processes. We use the sciences of embodied cognition and epigenetics to analyze the heritability of trauma and its spiritual–religious manifestations in the next generations. Having done so, our hope is that we can understand how spiritual and religious practices can be developed to help people who undergo trauma so that they can become resilient and thrive. (shrink)

Recently, ethicists have posited that consideration of epigenetic mechanisms presents novel challenges to concepts of justice and equality of opportunity, such as elevating the importance of environments in bioethics and providing a counterpoint to gross genetic determinism. We argue that new findings in epigenetic sciences, including those regarding intergenerational health effects, do not necessitate reconceptualization of theories of justice or the environment. To the contrary, such claims reflect a flawed understanding of epigenetics and its relation to genetics that may unintentionally (...) undermine appeals to social justice. We provide a brief summary of epigenetic sciences, focusing on phenomena central to the current ethical discourse. We identify three fallacious modes of reasoning arising from the emergent literature on the ethical and policy implications of epigenetics, including mischaracterization, undue extrapolation, and exceptionalism. We end by discussing how these issues may work against mobilizing health equity policies and present a more modest claim regarding the value of new epigenetic knowledge to health justice by setting this discourse within the context of known themes in biomedical ethics and health policy. (shrink)

We bring together recent discussions on data capitalism and biocapitalization by studying value flows in consumer genomics firms—an industry at the intersection between health care and technology realms. Consumer genomics companies market genomic testing services to consumers as a source of fun, altruism, belonging and knowledge. But by maintaining a multisided or platform business model, these firms also engage in digital capitalism, creating financial profit from data brokerage. This is a precarious balance to strike: If these companies’ business models consist (...) of assetizing the pool of genomic data that they assemble, then part of their work has to revolve around obscuring to consumers any uncertainties that would potentially impinge on these processes of assemblage. We reflect on the nature of these practices and the market relationships that enable them, and we relate this reflection to debates around alternative market arrangements that would potentially mitigate the extractive tendencies of these and other digital health firms. (shrink)

Despite numerous initiatives and significant resource investment, violence remains a pervasive threat to public health. The burgeoning field of epigenetics may offer an exciting new possibility for violence prevention efforts by illuminating the mechanisms of gene-environment interactions. In particular, it may improve our ability to design more effective primary interventions, facilitate improved intervention tailoring, and better position communities to be active agents in their well-being. However, without attention to the distinction between awareness, self-efficacy, and agency, it risks encouraging a false (...) sense of individual accountability for violence, a perception that may perpetuate or increase existing inequities. Thus, embracing epigenetic insights in public health raises new opportunities but also new concerns. Ultimately, I argue public health should embrace epigenetics’ potential, but only with an equal commitment to state responsibility and systemic justice. (shrink)

On ‘Mismatch’ and ‘Metabolic Ghettos:’ The Conceptualization of Global Health Differences in Research on the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. Epigenetic approaches to human health have received growing attention in the past two decades. They allow to view the development of human organisms as plastic, i.e. as open to influences from the social and material environment such as nutrition, stress, and trauma. This has lent new credence to approaches in biomedicine that aim to draw attention to the importance of (...) development for later life health. Some scholars in the social sciences and humanities have welcomed such approaches as a departure from gene‐centric perspectives and as an opportunity for highlighting the social and political determinants of health and illness. Others have warned that they might lead to new forms of biological reductionisms and determinisms. In this article, we explore how research on developmental plasticity addresses and articulates global health disparities, specifically in the context of postcolonial India. We discuss two prominent approaches from the field of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) that build on epigenetic perspectives on health and illness and view different global rates of disease susceptibility as the result of developmental processes: first, the ‘mismatch paradigm’ by Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson and second, the ‘metabolic ghetto’ concept by Jonathan Wells. We highlight how both approaches render historical and social factors meaningful for the development of global health disparities, but emphasize how they at the same time remain prone to determinisms and reductionisms reminiscent of a gene‐centric perspective. DOHaD actors themselves are critical of these tendencies, and in conclusion we explore novel opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations enabled by this critical potential. (shrink)