Rise of the Therapeutic State: New Challenges for Twenty‐first‐century Medicine

Abstract

In recent history, the politics of health has drifted inexorably towards a paradigm in which it is the responsibility of the state rather than of individuals to manage their health. What were once considered private health matters for individuals are now attributed with society-wide importance. This has given rise to a strident 'therapeutic state' which pays obsessive interest in its citizens' eating, drinking, smoking, exercise and sexual habits. However, many of the therapeutic state's own recommendations are poorly evidenced and doctrinaire. The lack of accountability and adverse incentives which creeping state intrusiveness brings will ultimately disconnect the health system from the needs of citizens and treat their personal information with inexcusable carelessness.