ArticleMedicine, health care, and philosophy2006
What is a genetic cause? The example of Alzheimer's Disease.
Article in Medicine, health care, and philosophy, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Polymorphisms within ASTN2 gene are associated with age at onset of Alzheimer's disease.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2015Article
- Explanatory pluralism in the medical sciences: theory and practice.Theoretical medicine and bioethics · 2010Article
- Memory enhancing drugs and Alzheimer's disease: enhancing the self or preventing the loss of it?Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2007Article
- Commentary on Wim Dekkers's and Marcel Olde Rikkert's: "What is a genetic disease? The example of Alzheimer's Disease", and Stephen Tyreman's: "Causes of illness in clinical practice: a conceptual exploration".Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2006Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This paper focuses on the causation of diseases, particularly on the idea of a "genetic cause" taking Alzheimer's Disease (AD) as an example. We (1) provide some historical information and a synopsis of the current knowledge on the etiology and pathogenesis of AD, (2) analyse some conceptual problems related to the notion of "genetic disease", (3) elaborate on the alleged (genetic) cause of AD, and (4) place the discussion on the cause of AD in a broader philosophical context, paying attention to a constructivist perspective, the notions of causal connection and causal selection, and to some practical and normative consequences of our analysis. We conclude (a) that AD is not a specific disease entity with one specific cause, (b) that the idea of a single (sufficient) cause can still function as a heuristic tool in AD research and practice, and (c) that a "belief" in causation can go together with the notions of multicausality and probability.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.