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Sociology of pharmaceutical development and regulation: a realist empirical research programme

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 00:30 authored by John Abraham
A realist conceptualisation of interests is proposed in opposition to the fashionable view that interests, objectivity and reality are merely social constructs, and that sociological analyses should be confined to discourse, actor-networks and micro-contextual practices. The objective interests of pharmaceutical companies in profit-maximisation, and of patients/public health in the optimisation of drugs’ benefit-risk ratios, can be empirically validated. The relationship between those interests and pharmaceutical regulation is best characterised by ‘neo-liberal corporate bias’ at the macro- and meso-levels. How such bias manifests itself at the micro-social level of science-based pharmaceutical testing and regulatory decision making is examined using a realist sociology of scientific knowledge, which appreciates that assessment of the validity of techno-scientific knowledge claims is essential for their sociological explanation. Commercial interests are shown to have biased science away from the interests of public health, in favour of industry. International comparisons of drug regulation demonstrate that drug injuries are not necessarily an inevitable by-product of pharmaceutical progress because some countries have fewer drug safety problems than others. Similarly, the lowering of techno-scientific standards for drug safety testing is not an inevitable cost of faster development of therapeutically valuable medicines, but a consequence of the internationalisation of neo-liberal corporate bias.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Sociology of Health and Illness

ISSN

01419889

Publisher

Wiley

Issue

6

Volume

30

Page range

869-885

Pages

17.0

Department affiliated with

  • Sociology and Criminology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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