ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the implications of extending the concept of 'care' to cover the healthy and their protection from future sickness, with a particular focus on the issue of screening. It aims to explore the differing meanings and referents of 'care' among the interest groups that are concerned with one particular area of disease prevention and health promotion — raised blood cholesterol and its role as a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD). The value of lowering cholesterol levels in order to prevent the development and progression of CHD has since become part of medical orthodoxy. The Family Heart Association (FHA) receives medical advice and public support from various established members of the medical profession who specialize in lipid disorders. The FHA and those clinicians working in the field of hyperlipidaemia see themselves as offering care through detection and subsequent prevention to a subsection of the population whose life-threatening condition is otherwise cruelly ignored.
