Open this publication in new window or tab >>2016 (English)In: Journal of Cultural Economy, ISSN 1753-0350, E-ISSN 1753-0369, Vol. 9, no 2, p. 157-172Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
This article examines the shifting conditions for biomedical knowledge production by studying trends in the design of biomedical experiments. The basic premise of the study is that the very act of establishing a research design entails a process involving a series of valuations where different values are evoked, ordered, and displaced. In focus is the articulation and ordering of what counts as central values in research design for two kinds of biomedical treatment trials, namely the traditional randomised controlled trial (RCT) and the emerging new form of biomarker trials used to assess biomarker/treatment combinations (BTTs). The empirical material consists of textbooks (RCTs) and journal articles (BTTs). We ask how these materials articulate the various scientific, medical, and economic values at play. Among the differences uncovered are a difference in relation to what counts as ethical in relation to prior knowledge, differences in the flexibility in design as well as the valuation of the risk for false positives and false negatives. More broadly, the study shows how textual accounts of different ways of producing knowledge are linked to partly different valuations of ethics, flexibility, and risk as part of establishing the research design of biomedical experiments.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis Group, 2016
Keywords
Valuation, knowledge production, knowledge as a public good, biomedical research, clinical trials, valuography
National Category
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-123446 (URN)10.1080/17530350.2015.1108215 (DOI)000378174500004 ()
Projects
Trials of Value / Prövningar av värde (Helgesson & Lee)
Funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, P11-0034
Note
Funding agencies:This paper reports a sub-study within the larger project `Trials of Value' where Helgesson and Lee investigate the valuations performed in the designing of different kinds of experiments in medicine and biomedicine. The project has been made possible with a grant from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The authors want to thank Barbara Townley and Philip Roscoe as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful and encouraging comments on earlier versions of this article. The article has furthermore benefited from comments on various occasions: the session `Clinical research in post-genomic medicine' at 4S/EASST Copenhagen, October 2012; the workshop `What price creativity? A workshop on the valuing of social/public goods' at University of St Andrews, December 2012; and the ValueS seminar within Technology and Social Change, Linkoping University. In particular, we want to acknowledge comments and encouragement by Alberto Cambrosio, Andrew Hoffman, Nicole Nelson, and Teun Zuiderent-Jerak.
2015-12-172015-12-172018-01-10