Privatizing Biomedical Citizenship
By Jonathan Kahn,
HealthLawProf Blog
| 03. 03. 2014
Genomic research is at an impasse. In the decade since the completion of the first draft of the human genome, progress has been made but few of the grandest promises of genomics have materialized. Biomedical researchers largely agree that one critical thing is essential to propel genomics into the future and maintain its legitimacy: more bodies. Over the past decade a series of distinct yet interrelated efforts at massive recruitment of subjects to participate in biomedical research, while clearly motivated by a desire to drive biomedical research to its next stage of promised critical breakthroughs, have also promoted a privatized conception of citizenship that configures citizens’ duties as serving, not the public good, but rather the good of private corporations – pharmaceutical manufacturers in particular. This reconfiguration of citizenship, in turn, implicates the allocation of related public resources to support drug development.
In a prominent 2009 article, Ezekiel Emmanuel, then Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the NIH (and brother to President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel), and colleagues made the case for a citizen obligation to participate...
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The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...