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Ivan Illich: from expropriation to demedicalization of health

ABSTRACT

Ivan Illich was a radical critic of the industrial society, whose ideas influenced the propagation of a movement against health care, by medicine in the 1970s. In his work, Medicine is seen as a medical company, whose function is to threaten health, through the medical colonization of life, that alienates the means of treatment; and professional monopoly, which prevents the sharing of scientific knowledge. This article aims to present aspects of Ivan Illich´ s life and work, with emphasis on his book 'The expropriation of health: Medical Nemesis' (1975), and also his second social critique to health, with the introduction of new concepts in his work, in 1985.

KEYWORDS
Physician-patient relations; Medicalization; Public health

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