ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses head-on one of the most critical issues to have preoccupied the US health care sector since the late 1950s-early 1960s when public concern was focused on the economic barriers that were blocking access to the system for a large number of the elderly and the poor. It discusses the new genetics as effecting a major upheaval in the clinical laboratory where diagnostic evaluation will require the active participation of a consulting geneticist capable of assessing and interpreting the relationships between individual and family group findings. The book focuses on one of the most important transformations that have occurred, the greying of the population, whose impact and influence will be magnified after the turn of the century when the baby-boom generation approaches the age of retirement.
