Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-2h6rp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-20T15:30:56.069Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democratizing Strategies for Industry-Funded Medical Research: A Cautionary Tale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Manuela Fernández Pinto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article examines the process of niche standardization in medical research as an example of democratizing strategies implemented in industry-funded science. I argue that niche standardization can lead to undesirable epistemic and ethical consequences, if the various goals of research are not properly aligned. I examine two examples: the case of Sarafem, approved for the treatment of premenstrual dysphoric disorder in women, and the case of BiDil, approved for exclusive use in African Americans for the treatment of congestive heart failure. I conclude by cautioning against the unqualified support of democratizing strategies in industry-funded research.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , December 2018 , pp. 882 - 894
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

The author would like to thank the organizers and participants of the 2015 Collaboration Conundrum Conference at the University of Notre Dame, the 2016 Conference on Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas, and the TINT Centre at the University of Helsinki for their useful comments on previous drafts. Special thanks to Bennett Holman for organizing the PSA symposium on industry-funded science, as well as Heather Douglas and Kevin Elliott for their contributions. Finally, thanks to Martin Carrier, Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, Dan Hicks, and Kevin Elliott, whose comments greatly contributed to improving the argument of the article.

References

Anderson, Elizabeth. 2004. “Uses of Value Judgments in Science: A General Argument, with Lessons from a Case Study of Feminist Research on Divorce.” Hypatia 19:1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angell, Marcia. 2004. The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do about It. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Biddle, Justin. 2013. “State of the Field: Transient Underdetermination and Values in Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44:124–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biddle, Justin 2016. “Inductive Risk, Epistemic Risk, and Overdiagnosis of Disease.” Perspectives on Science 24 (2): 192–205..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biddle, Justin, and Kukla, Rebecca. 2017. “From Inductive Risk to Epistemic Risk.” In Elliott and Richardson 2017, 215–37.Google Scholar
Bloche, M. Gregg. 2004. “Race-Based Therapeutics.” New England Journal of Medicine 351 (20): 2035–37..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Broadbent, Alex. 2011. “Inferring Causation in Epidemiology: Mechanisms, Black-Boxes, and Contrasts.” In Causality in the Sciences, ed. Illari, Phyllis M., Russo, Federica, and Williamson, Jon, 45–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Matt. 2013. “Values in Science beyond Underdetermination and Inductive Risk.” Philosophy of Science 80:829–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caplan, Paula J. 2004. “The Debate about PMDD and Sarafem: Suggestions for Therapists.” In From Menarche to Menopause: The Female Body in Feminist Therapy, ed. Chrisler, Joan C., 55–67. Binghamton, NY: Haworth.Google Scholar
Carrier, Martin. 2009. “Research under Pressure: Methodological Features of Commercialized Science.” In The Commodification of Academic Research, ed. Radder, Hans. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Carson, Peter, Ziesche, Susan, Johnson, Gary, and Cohn, Jay N.. 1999. “Racial Differences in Response to Therapy for Heart Failure: Analysis of the Vasodilator-Heart Failure Trials.” Journal of Cardiac Failure 5 (3): 178–87..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chrisler, Joan C., and Caplan, Paula. 2002. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde: How PMS Became a Cultural Phenomenon and a Psychiatric Disorder.” Annual Review of Sex Research 13:274–306.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, Lisa, and Riddle, Bethany. 2003. “Constructions of Femininity and Experiences of Menstrual Distress.” Women and Health 38 (3): 37–58..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Douglas, Heather. 2000. “Inductive Risk and Values in Science.” Philosophy of Science 67:559–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dries, Daniel, et al. 1999. “Racial Differences in the Outcome of Left Ventricular Dysfunction.” New England Journal of Medicine 340 (8): 609–16..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elliott, Kevin C. 2011. Is a Little Pollution Good for You? Incorporating Societal Values in Environmental Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Kevin C., and Richards, Ted. 2017. Exploring Inductive Risk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Endicott, Jean, et al. 1999. “Is Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder a Distinct Medical Entity?” Journal of Women’s Health and Gender-Based Medicine 8 (5): 663–79..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Steven. 1995. “The Construction of Lay Expertise: AIDS Activism and the Forging of Credibility in the Reform of Clinical Trials.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 20 (4): 408–37..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Epstein, Steven 2007. Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández Pinto, Manuela. 2014. “Philosophy of Science for Globalized Privatization: Uncovering the Limitations of Critical Contextual Empiricism.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 47:10–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernández Pinto, Manuela 2015. “Commercialization and the Limits of Well-Ordered Science.” Perspectives on Science 23:173–91.Google Scholar
Franciosa, Joseph A., et al. 2002. “African-American Heart Failure Trial (A-HeFT): Rationale, Design, and Methodology.” Journal of Cardiac Failure 8 (3): 128–35..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuentes, Agustín. 2012. Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Amy. 2005. “The FDA Approves a Race-Specific Drug for the First Time in History.” Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2005/8/1/the_fda_approves_a_race_specific.Google Scholar
Grasswick, Heidi. E. 2010. “Scientific and Lay Communities: Earning Epistemic Trust through Knowledge Sharing.” Synthese 177 (3): 387–409..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenlit, Nathan. 2005. “Depression and Consumption: Psychopharmaceuticals, Branding, and New Identity Practices.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 29:477–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 2015. Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henig, Robin M. 2004. “The Genome in Black and White (and Gray).” New York Times Magazine, October 10.Google Scholar
Hicks, Dan. 2014. “A New Direction for Science and Values.” Synthese 191:3271–3995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intemann, Kristen. 2005. “Feminism, Underdetermination, and Values in Science.” Philosophy of Science 72:1001–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intemann, Kristen, and de Melo-Martin, Inmaculada. 2016. “Feminist Values, Commercial Values, and the Bias Paradox in Biomedical Research.” In Meta-philosophical Reflection on Feminist Philosophies of Science, ed. Amoretti, M. C. and Vasallo, N.. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Kahn, Jonathan. 2004. “How a Drug Becomes ‘Ethnic’: Law, Commerce, and the Production of Racial Categories in Medicine.” Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics 4 (1): 1–46..Google ScholarPubMed
Koskinen, Inkeri. 2017. “Where Is the Epistemic Community? On Democratisation of Science and Social Accounts of Objectivity.” Synthese 194 (12): 4671–86..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kourany, Janet A. 2010. Philosophy of Science after Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kourany, Janet A. 2012. “The Ideal of Socially Responsible Science: Reply to Dupré, Rolin, Solomon, and Giere.” Perspectives on Science 20 (3): 344–52..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 1990. Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NIH (National Institutes of Health). 1993. Revitalization Act. https://orwh.od.nih.gov/sites/orwh/files/docs/NIH-Revitalization-Act-1993.pdf.Google Scholar
Offman, Alia, and Kleinplatz, Peggy J.. 2004. “Does PMDD Belong in the DSM? Challenging the Medicalization of Women’s Bodies.” Canadian Journal of Women Sexuality 13 (1): 17–27..Google Scholar
Pollock, Anne. 2012. Medicalizing Race: Heart Disease and Durable Preoccupations with Difference. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Robert S. 2001. “Racial Profiling in Medical Research.” Editorial. New England Journal of Medicine 344 (18): 1392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Anne L., et al. 2004. “Combination of Isosorbide Dinitrate and Hydralazine in Blacks with Heart Failure.” New England Journal of Medicine 351 (20): 2049–57..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ussher, Jane. 2010. “Are We Medicalizing Women’s Misery?” Feminism and Psychology 20 (1): 9–35..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valles, Sean. 2012. “Heterogeneity of Risk within Racial Groups, a Challenge from Public Health Programs.” Preventive Medicine 55:405–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vedantam, Shankar. 2001. “Renamed Prozac Fuels Women’s Health Debate.” Washington Post, April 29.Google Scholar
Weisz, George, and Knaapen, Loes. 2009. “Diagnosing and Treating Premenstrual Syndrome in Five Western Nations.” Social Science and Medicine 68:1498–1505.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilholt, Torsten. 2009. “Bias and Values in Scientific Research.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40:92–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, David R. 1992. “Black-White Differences in Blood Pressure: The Role of Social Factors.” Ethnicity and Disease 2:126–41.Google ScholarPubMed