Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4998

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Busfield J.
Pills, Power, People: Sociological Understandings of the Pharmaceutical Industry
2006; 40:(2):297-314
http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/40/2/297?etoc

Abstract:

This article examines how sociology can contribute to an understanding of the work, power and impact of the pharmaceutical industry. Drawing in particular on Latour’s theoretical and empirical analysis of science, in conjunction with a more explicit consideration of power, it examines the scientific ‘fact making’ involved in the clinical trials of drugs designed to assess their safety and effectiveness, assessments that are the basis for securing approval for their release onto the market. It also examines post-approval drug assessments and the fuller evaluation of a drug that emerges with time. It shows how the industry’s control over this science, especially in the pre-approval stage, has helped to encourage extensive, and often excessive, use of pharmaceuticals.

Keywords:
clinical trials drug approval pharmaceutical industry power science