This book explores the social, ethical, and economic dilemmas society faces as a result of medical innovation, and the role of the general public in resolving them. It is the product of a multidisciplinary research project based at the Stanford University School of Medicine and funded by the National Science Foundation's Program in Ethics and Values in Science and Technology, with additional support from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Many aspects of the book and the project that produced it are, by conventional academic standards, rather unusual. First, the book is written for a general audience rather than for specialists, although we hope that specialists will also find in it new ideas and information. Its primary purpose is to communicate the central issues raised by medical and scientific innovation in a manner that is widely accessible, yet also accurate. We have therefore tried to keep specialized terminology to a minimum and to avoid the dry and often obscure style characteristic of much academic writing, without sacrificing scholarly standards of analytic rigor and documentation. We have also tried to bridge the sometimes considerable chasm between abstract intellectual theories and the practical concerns of policymakers and citizens.

Second, the book is broadly interdisciplinary in outlook. At one point or another, the project included faculty, staff, and students from medicine, history, political science, sociology, economics, philosophy, anthropology, education, regional planning, and law.