Chemoprevention for Healthy Women: Harbinger of Things to Come?

Abstract

Chemoprevention is a new form of medicalization in which healthy individuals take medications to reduce their risk of getting a disease. For the first time, a cancer chemotherapy agent has been approved for use in women who may be at high risk of getting breast cancer, but do not have the disease. Rather than promoting this remarkable new use of a drug to physicians alone, the manufacturer is advertising it directly to women in print and broadcast media. The article reports a study of women’s responses to these ads and discusses emerging meanings associated with the new category of being ‘at risk.’