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" Laws are not science; they are normative ideology and are thus tightly tied to power. Biomedicine and public health, though also vulnerable to being deformed by ideology, serve different imperatives, ask different questions. They do not ask whether an event or a process violates an existing rule; they ask whether that event or process has ill effects on a patient or a population. "

Paul Farmer , Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor


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Paul Farmer quote : Laws are not science; they are normative ideology and are thus tightly tied to power. Biomedicine and public health, though also vulnerable to being deformed by ideology, serve different imperatives, ask different questions. They do not ask whether an event or a process violates an existing rule; they ask whether that event or process has ill effects on a patient or a population.