Treating homosexuality as a sickness: Time to rethink extent to which social norms determine disease

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7445.955-a

BMJ 2004;328:955 (17 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7445.955-a

Letter

Treating homosexuality as a sickness

Time to rethink extent to which social norms determine disease

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—At the end of her Editor's choice on medicine'sshameful past MacDonald concedes that social norms define anattitude as a disease.¹ If this is the shape of things to come,then it is high time to rethink the "limit" to which our socialnorms should be allowed to challenge the indications for labellingsomething as a sickness.

I hope I don't live to see the day when doctors will be penalisedfor asking people to avoid overconsumption of alcohol just becauseit may be the social norm at that time to drink as much as youlike without any fear of being apprehended. Doctors must subscribeto changing social norms, but at the same time they should endeavourto continue classifying something as a sickness if there isa sound scientific evidence to do so, even if norms have changed.A sickness is not cured if all . . . [Full text of this article]

Umair Riaz, student

Army Medical College, Pakistan dear2104@yahoo.com