In Europe, the estimated number of people affected by these conditions is 25 million, and related associations proliferate. So also policy makers seem to do they implemented specific policies, such as the European Regulation on Orphan Medicinal Products in 2000, and some observers ( Dalgalarrondo 2004), who believe that common diseases could be fragmented into myriads of rare diseases, due to the growing sophistication of medical descriptions ( Hedgecoe 2003).
Although medical sociologists have thoroughly discussed the categories of ‘chronic diseases’ and ‘genetic diseases’, they tend to consider ‘rare diseases’ as self-evident.
