When Experiments Travel
Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects
Published on 17. May 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-691-12657-9 (ISBN)
Description
The phenomenal growth of global pharmaceutical sales and the quest for innovation are driving an unprecedented search for human test subjects, particularly in middle- and low-income countries. Our hope for medical progress increasingly depends on the willingness of the world's poor to participate in clinical drug trials. While these experiments often provide those in need with vital and previously unattainable medical resources, the outsourcing and offshoring of trials also create new problems. In this groundbreaking book, anthropologist Adriana Petryna takes us deep into the clinical trials industry as it brings together players separated by vast economic and cultural differences. Moving between corporate and scientific offices in the United States and research and public health sites in Poland and Brazil, When Experiments Travel documents the complex ways that commercial medical science, with all its benefits and risks, is being integrated into local health systems and emerging drug markets. Providing a unique perspective on globalized clinical trials, When Experiments Travel raises central questions: Are such trials exploitative or are they social goods?
How are experiments controlled and how is drug safety ensured? And do these experiments help or harm public health in the countries where they are conducted? Empirically rich and theoretically innovative, the book shows that neither the language of coercion nor that of rational choice fully captures the range of situations and value systems at work in medical experiments today. When Experiments Travel challenges conventional understandings of the ethics and politics of transnational science and changes the way we think about global medicine and the new infrastructures of our lives.
How are experiments controlled and how is drug safety ensured? And do these experiments help or harm public health in the countries where they are conducted? Empirically rich and theoretically innovative, the book shows that neither the language of coercion nor that of rational choice fully captures the range of situations and value systems at work in medical experiments today. When Experiments Travel challenges conventional understandings of the ethics and politics of transnational science and changes the way we think about global medicine and the new infrastructures of our lives.
Reviews / Votes
Honorable Mention for the 2014 Diana Forsythe Prize, Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing of the General Anthropology Division, and the Society for the Anthropology of Work "Obama administration officials wondering what to expect from this brewing storm should consult Adriana Petryna's new book When Experiments Travel, which deals with the global clinical trials industry, especially in low-income and middle-income countries."--Helen Epstein, The Lancet "She succeeds in presenting a balanced set of viewpoints on a variety of concerns about recruiting practices, informed consent, drug safety, the blurring of lines between clinical practice and research, and issues of distributive justice such as drug pricing and access."--K.H. Jacobsen, Choice "In When Experiments Travel, Adriana Petryna has written a timely book. It provides an important anthropological perspective on the issues surrounding clinical trials and how to make medical research more transparent and accessible to the general public."--Dinesh Sharma, Health Affairs "When Experiments Travel is a provocative look inside the outsourcing of clinical trials. The issues that it raises are complex and profound. Hopefully, it will spawn further empirical work and influence the terms of the ongoing debate surrounding the ethics and regulation of international research."--Alex John London, IRB Ethics and Human Research "[S]cholars of the social organization of medicine would appreciate this book for the window it provides into treatment... The book is also an important information source for economic sociologists interested in how a new industry is recontextualized into distant political and professional regimes. Finally, it should be appreciated for the insight it offers into the production of a form of evidence onto which a remarkable amount of importance is placed in contemporary medicine."--Daniel Menchik, Qualitative SociologyMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
383 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-12657-9 (9780691126579)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2015
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€161.95
Available for download
Book
05/2009
Princeton University Press
€76.88
Article exhausted; check different version
Person
Adriana Petryna is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of the award-winning "Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl" (Princeton) and the coeditor of "Global Pharmaceuticals: Ethics, Markets, Practices".
Content
Abbreviations ix INTRODUCTION: EXPERIMENTAL FIELDS 1 The Search for Human Subjects 1 Anthropology and the Global Clinical Trial 5 CHAPTER ONE: ETHICAL VARIABILITY 10 Why Are Clinical Trials Globalizing? 10 Treatment Saturation 19 Experimentality 26 Ethics as "Workable Document" 33 Floater Sites and Hidden Harms 41 The Aftermath of Clinical Trials 44 CHAPTER TWO: ARTS OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT 47 Study Mills 47 Drug-Development Services 53 From Vulnerable to Professional Subjects 61 The Pharmaceutical Boom and Everyday Research 68 Engineering Out Harm 77 The Scientific Plateau and the New Safety Paradigm 85 CHAPTER THREE: THE GLOBAL CLINICAL TRIAL 89 How Many Clinical Trials Are Being Carried Out Worldwide? 89 The Polish Market and the "Nonexistent" Patient 98 Clinical Research Frontiers 106 Collaborations in Global Science 109 Akademia Kliniczna 116 The Work of Slack 119 Patient-Consumers 124 "Our society was not competitive" 127 Pivotal Countries 130 Insurance and Legal Protection 132 CHAPTER FOUR: PHARMACEUTICALS AND THE RIGHT TO HEALTH 139 Reclaiming Patients and the Evidence Base of Drugs 139 "Pharmaceuticals are the new gold" 142 Health Technology Assessment in Brazil 146 The Judicialization of Health 150 Alternative Treatment Guidelines 153 The Clinical Research Unit 156 When a Country Is a Pharmacy 160 A Public Health Experiment 165 What Happens When Clinical Trials End 167 The Values Patients Bring 173 Information Asymmetry and Agency 179 CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL MEDICINE 186 Scientific Evidence and Value 186 Drugs as Public Goods 190 Global Health Markets 192 Innovation 195 Acknowledgments 201 Notes 205 References 225 Index 249