[From the right to health to the responsibility for healthy aging: a new foundation for anti-aging medicine in Germany].
This paper explores the problem of dealing with normalisation in public health concepts, using the example of the relaunching of anti-aging-medicine in Germany. The analysis mainly draws upon qualitative analyses of publications of different anti-aging-medicine organisations. The German branch of anti-aging-medicine's new concepts of the nature, the morality and the self-design of aging are delineated. These are the concepts of aging as a medically controllable health risk (nature), the emphasis of the moral duty to responsible personal risk control (morality) and the self-design through individual risk profiles and prevention programmes. The analysis shows that the proposed bio-political programme cannot only be induced from biologically, societally or medically given facts, but that it is - as all public health concepts - a normative concept. It is argued that the normative aspects of public health concepts cannot be avoided but should be explicated and negotiated. This paper therefore concludes with an exploration of what there is to negotiate concerning the German anti-aging-physicians' surprisingly uncontroversial plea for a shift of emphasis from the collective right to health to a new individual duty for health maintenance in old age.
Spindler
M
M
Graduiertenkolleg Bioethik, Internationales Zentrum für Ethik in den Wissenschaften, Universität Tübingen. mone_spindler@gmx.de
D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000941:ethics* / Q000502:physiology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000941:ethics*; D005858:Germany; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D028681:Moral Obligations; D017008:Negotiating; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011057:Politics; D057285:Precision Medicine / Q000941:ethics; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000941:ethics; D011634:Public Health / Q000941:ethics*; D012941:Social Responsibility