Perspectives on harm in personalized medicine

TL;DR

This paper explores the complex concept of harm in personalized medicine using formal causal language, highlighting its implications for decision-making, ethics, and legal considerations.

Contribution

It provides a formal analysis of different definitions of harm in personalized medicine, clarifying their practical and philosophical impacts.

Findings

Different definitions of harm have distinct practical implications.

Formal causal language helps clarify the concept of harm.

Implications for ethics and legal practice are discussed.

Abstract

Avoiding harm is an uncontroversial aim of personalized medicine and other epidemiologic initiatives. However, the precise mathematical translation of "harm" is disputable. Here we use a formal causal language to study common, but distinct, definitions of "harm". We clarify that commitment to a definition of harm has important practical and philosophical implications for decision making. We relate our practical and philosophical considerations to ideas from medical ethics and legal practice.