Pharmaceuticalization & Biopower

Other commitments have kept me away for a while, but I couldn't resist posting the abstracts of these two pieces, given how much they have to do with the themes of this blog. What we have here are some critical tools that can be used to qualify the characterization of modern societies in terms of the life sciences. If you have institutional access, these are essential reading:

Pharmaceuticalization of Society in Context: Theoretical, Empirical and Health Dimensions

1. John Abraham
   1. University of Sussex, j.w.abraham@sussex.ac.uk
   2. Sociology August 2010 vol. 44 no. 4603-622

Abstract

Sociological interest in pharmaceuticals has intensified, heightening awareness of ‘pharmaceuticalization’. It is argued that pharmaceuticalization should be understood by reference to five main biosociological explanatory factors: biomedicalism, medicalization, pharmaceutical industry promotion and marketing, consumerism, and regulatory-state ideology or policy. The biomedicalism thesis, which claims that expansion of drug treatment reflects advances in biomedical science to meet health needs, is found to be a weak explanatory factor because a significant amount of growth in pharmaceuticalization is inconsistent with scientific evidence, and because drug innovations offering significant therapeutic advance have been declining across the sector, including areas of major health need. Some elements of consumerism have undermined pharmaceuticalization, even causing de-pharmaceuticalization in some therapeutic sub-fields. However, other aspects of consumerism, together with industry promotion, medicalization, and deregulatory state policies are found to be drivers of increased pharmaceuticalization in ways that are largely outside, or sub-optimal for, significant therapeutic advances in the interests of public health.

• biomedicalism
• consumerism
• drug innovation
• marketing
• medicalization
• pharmaceutical industry
• regulatory state

Life, Science, and Biopower

1. Sujatha Raman
   1. Institute for Science and Society (ISS), Law & Social Sciences Building West Wing, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom,sujatha.raman@nottingham.ac.uk

1. Richard Tutton
1. Centre for the Social and Economic Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
2. Science Technology Human ValuesSeptember 2010 vol. 35 no. 5 711-734

Abstract

This article critically engages with the influential theory of ‘‘molecularized biopower’’ and ‘‘politics of life’’ developed by Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose. Molecularization is assumed to signal the end of population-centred biopolitics and the disciplining of subjects as described by Foucault, and the rise of new forms of biosociality and biological citizenship. Drawing on empirical work in Science and Technology Studies (STS), we argue that this account is limited by a focus on novelty and assumptions about the transformative power of the genetic life sciences. We suggest that biopower consists of a more complex cluster of relationships between the molecular and the population. The biological existence of different human beings is politicized through different complementary and competing discourses around medical therapies, choices at the beginning and end of life, public health, environment, migration and border controls, implying a multiple rather than a singular politics of life.

• biopower
• biopolitics
• life sciences
• politics of life
• molecular politics

Iceland: test tube nation

This is a truly incredible documentary. Watch the trailer. Be sure to also do the follow up reading:



Part detective story, part exposé, and part travelogue, Promising Genomics investigates one of the signature biotech stories of our time and, in so doing, opens a window onto the high-speed, high-tech, and high-finance world of genome science. In a luminous account, Mike Fortun investigates how deCODE Genetics, in Iceland, became one of the wealthiest companies of its kind, as well as one of the most scandalous, with its plan to use the genes and medical records of the entire Icelandic population for scientific research. Delving into the poetry of W. H. Auden, the novels of Halldór Laxness, and the perils of Keiko the killer whale, Fortun maps the contemporary genomics landscape at a time when we must begin to ask questions about what "life" is made of in the age of DNA, databases, and derivatives trading.

From the Inside Flap
"What an extraordinary tale, both entertaining and expertly told. I ended this page-turner chuckling and deeply informed about the outscale ambitions of bioscience, making a corporate Wild West of Iceland's cultural reserve. Scholarly science writing doesn't get any better than this."--George E. Marcus, Series Editor, Late Editions: Cultural Studies for the End of the Century

"A chiasmic tour de force: entertaining, informative, and insightful, a brilliant picaresque romp. Promising Genomics decodes deCode, one of the signature biotech and genomics stories of our times, unsettling almost all the key issues--legal, scientific, regulatory, transnational capital, social justice, democratic--of modern biologists' business plans and of doing fieldwork in a high-tech, fast-paced, speculative economy."--Michael M.J. Fischer, author of Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice and Anthropological Futures

"Promising Genomics guides us through the gorgeous volatility of the Iceland genomic debates--media gullibility, corporate avarice, NGO activism, and the complicity of scholars that turn up to study them. Mike Fortun's ethnography gathers data from all over--Icelandic novels, town hall meetings, stock market speculation, the fortunes of Keiko the whale, Icelandic geography--to find a better way of engaging with contemporary genomic research. The narrative he constructs is intellectually compelling, affectively astute and politically alive. Promising Genomics is a watershed for scholars and activists working at the interface of biology and culture. It will reinvent your bioethical commitments."--Elizabeth A. Wilson, author of Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body

"Like an ethnographic prospectus, Promising Genomics brings the fine print of our encoded future to life. Fortun reveals how financial speculation, promissory science, and compromised politics have transformed the people of Iceland into genetic stock--and how Icelanders have responded. Anyone invested in the question of how techno-scientific futures are launched would be well advised to read this vivid account."--Ken Alder, author of The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession

Bioships, replicating spacecraft and the exploration of exoplanets

We were talking the other day about the inaccessibility of exoplanets (they can't even be captured by imaging because of their obscurity), and this drove home the point as to why the "generation starship" concept is being supplemented or displaced by scientists and sci fi authors alike. The practical problems are how to sustain life and the energy required to power a ship across such vast distances over really long periods of time.

Here we see the biotech focus of this blog coming into alignment with a number of fascinating possibilities. For some background on exoplanets, it is useful to pay a visit to the Planetary Society. And here is the quote by Freeman Dyson that really caught my attention:

"Any affordable program of manned exploration must be centered in biology, and its time frame tied to the time frame of biotechnology; a hundred years, roughly the time it will take us to learn to grow warm-blooded plants, is probably reasonable".^[21]

However, Dyson is not solely preoccupied with manned exploration, as anyone who Googles "astrochicken" will quickly discover. Here we have Dyson, along with other scientists, applying the concept of "self replicating machines" to the development of spacecraft. As you can see from this link, the replicating spacecraft has also become a staple of science fiction. Unsurprisingly, while it offers in theory a means of exploring further and quicker than manned flights, there are concerns about whether replication could be controlled. If not, according to the "berserker" model, replicating probes would regard the existence of other lifeforms as competition, and would therefore seek to exterminate them. A more benign spin on the theme is the "seeder"/embryo space colonisation model, whereby genetic patterns from the homeworld are stored in readiness for the terraforming of habitable exoplanets. A degree of automation would circumvent the need for sustaining the living, breathing crew, associated with generation starships.

Of particular interest to this blog, Alien appears suggestive of the possibility of catastrophe arising from an admixture of berserker and embryo space colonisation. The sequence of events is not clear at this stage, as we await release of the [two] prequel (s), but one possibility would be that the automation process became corrupted during either the flight or upon contact with the exoplanet Acheron, with the xenomorphs subsequently emerging as a berserker species.

One of the more interesting pieces I have read of late discusses the derelict in terms of its being a bioship.
Let me return to Freeman Dyson though, given the lecture I've watched online of him advocating the need for "heretical thinking" in science. Furthermore, the Research Channel featured a video of author Ann Finkbeiner naming Dyson as a member of "the Jasons", "a self-selecting cadre of scientists independent of the government who evaluate military technologies at the frontier of physical feasibility". If such claims bear closer scrutiny, Alien may one day prove extremely prescient, given how the Weyland Utani Corporation was likewise interested in acquiring the lifeform for military purposes. Here, I mean to suggest that "heretical thinking" in science can easily translate to "the ends justify the means".

Although I am not charging Dyson with guilt by mere association, I do share Finkbeiner's concerns, which are raised as well in sci fi such as Alien: what role should the government play in scientific research? At what point is the inventor accountable for the hazards of the invention? The sheer vastness of "the final frontier" reminds us of the inherent difficulty of regulating any applied biotechnological research in such a context.

Please note that Dyson enthusiastically endorses biotech in the first part of this talk, before moving on to the theme of what kind of life might exist on Europa, and how we might go about finding it. In the final part, around 16:00, he connects biotech to space exploration, arguing that if we cannot find life out there, we should create it for ourselves to populate the universe, thereby making it a much richer, more interesting place. Hence it will not just be us moving from Earth into the universe, but living things in general. These proposals are obviously fraught with potential benefits and hazards, but the latter are not addressed in Dyson's talk:

Is xenobiology becoming a reality?

One of the goals in synthetic biology is to design an orthogonal chromosome different from DNA and RNA, termed XNA for xeno nucleic acids. Xenobiological systems like XNA are ‘‘invisible’’ to natural biological systems, which means they could be the ultimate biosafety tool.

Read more about it in the recently published Open Access Paper:
Schmidt M. 2010. Xenobiology: A new form of life as the ultimate biosafety tool. BioEssays Vol.32(4): 322-331

For further information see also:

• ORTHOSOME: An Orthogonal Episome: an Artificial Genetic System Based on a Novel Type of Nucleic Acids
• Marliere P. 2009. The farther, the safer: a manifesto for securely navigating synthetic species away from the old living world. Systems and Syntheitc Biology. Vol.3(1-4):77-84
• Herdewijn P, Marlière P. 2009. Toward Safe Genetically Modified Organisms through the Chemical Diversification of Nucleic Acids. Chemistry & Biodiversity. Vol. 6, Iss. 6: 791 - 808

Synbiosafe Trailer from Camillo on Vimeo.

You can guess that I just couldn't resist moving to this topic after referring to the xenomorphs from the Alien series in the previous post. In this case engineering dictates that, unlike the science fiction, there is no evolution through interaction (i.e. using other lifeforms as "hosts") with the "natural" environment. But what to make of this piece of understatement from Schmidt's article?: "is it necessary to prohibit any activities that actively try to undermine the specifications mentioned above? i.e. similar to prohibiting R & D that aims at developing new offensive bioweapons?" Gee Markus, what do you think? Why the rhetorical stance? Cat got your tongue?

Make no mistake about it then, this debate will assume increasing importance. If the precautionary principle of post-normal science prominently features at this stage, how difficult will it be to maintain given the amounts of money needed to fund it into the future? Compromises might be introduced sooner than we would like (a potential for military applications will be only one facet of this). "Bring on more debate", is what I say.

Synthetic Biology

the technoscience and its societal consequences

Schmidt, M.; Kelle, A.; Ganguli-Mitra, A.; Vriend, H. (Eds.)

2010, VIII, 186 p., Hardcover

ISBN: 978-90-481-2677-4

Usually dispatched within 3 to 5 business days

119,95 €

• About this book

Synthetic biology is becoming one of the most dynamic new fields of biology, with the potential to revolutionize the way we do biotechnology today. By applying the toolbox of engineering disciplines to biology, a whole set of potential applications become possible ranging very widely across scientific and engineering disciplines. Some of the potential benefits of synthetic biology, such as the development of low-cost drugs or the production of chemicals and energy by engineered bacteria are enormous. There are, however, also potential and perceived risks due to deliberate or accidental damage. Also, ethical issues of synthetic biology just start being explored, with hardly any ethicists specifically focusing on the area of synthetic biology. This book will be the first of its kind focusing particularly on the safety, security and ethical concerns and other relevant societal aspects of this new emerging field. The foreseen impact of this book will be to stimulate a debate on these societal issues at an early stage. Past experiences, especially in the field of GM-crops and stem cells, have shown the importance of an early societal debate. The community and informed stakeholders recognize this need, but up to now discussions are fragmentary. This book will be the first comprehensive overview on relevant societal issues of synthetic biology, setting the scene for further important discussions within the scientific community and with civil society.

Content Level » Research

Related subjects » Biomedical Sciences - Biotechnology - Medicine - Production & Process Engineering - R&D / Technology Policy

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Markus Schmidt; 2. That Was the Synthetic Biology That Was, Luis Campos; 3. An Introduction to Synthetic Biology, Carolyn M.C. Lam, Miguel Godinho, Vítor A.P. Martins dos Santos; 4. Computational Design in Synthetic Biology, Maria Suarez, Guillermo Rodrigo, Javier Carrera, Alfonso Jaramillo; 5. The Ethics of Synthetic Biology, Anna Deplazes, Agomoni Ganguli-Mitra, Nikola Biller-Andorno; 6. Do I understand what I can create?, Markus Schmidt; 7. Security Issues Related to Synthetic Biology, Alexander Kelle; 8. The Intellectual Commons and Property in Synthetic Biology, Kenneth A. Oye, Rachel Wellhausen; 9. Governing Synthetic Biology: processes and outcomes, Joyce Tait; 10. Synthetic Biology and the Role of Civil Society Organisatons, Dirk Stemerding, Huib de Vriend, Bart Walhout, Rinie van Est; 11. Summary and Calculations, Alexander Kelle; Index

"Don't be an asshole, Deckard. I've got four skin-jobs walking the streets".

Well ok, not quite yet. But everytime I read something about the military sponsorship of regenerative medicine, I start to imagine the Tyrell Corporation doing subcontracting work for Weyland Yutani. Remember though, the thesis of the cyborganisation of the human is not just about the militarisation of our hearts and minds, but rather a more general commodification. According to this logic, capitalism will solve its accumulation crisis by colonising the inner frontier (our bodies), in tandem with the colonisation of outer space (spearheaded by the colonial marines, who may be private mercenaries, in contrast to the armies of nation states we are more familiar with). I'm very eager then to follow up Carl Abbott and William H Katerberg's work concerning sci fi's envisioning of capitalism's "spatial fix" (to use Marxist geographer David Harvey's term).

I realise there is an air of familiarity to these musings, not only because I've alluded to these issues before, but rather because they basically rework the familiar frontier thesis. But if this just sounds like "back to the future" syndrome (i.e. the more things change, the more they stay the same), this is true only up to a point. Privatisation will probably be of a different economy of scale than the mass conscript armies that were once mobilised by nation states. Its logic dictates instead that individual entrepreneurs' sense of entitlement, risk and adventure, will be the most likely means of realising Manifest Destiny- sorry, ahem- benefitting "all humanity".



The representation of heads of state in such a light can appear antiquated by comparison. Growing awareness of this cultural shift might explain the choice of the "steam punk" style in this series to convey an alternative "nostalgia for the future" (where allies can transcend narrow self interest in a war against fascism):




I referred earlier to the "colonial marines", and it reminds me of Ziauddin Sardar's point in his introduction to Aliens R Us about how the genre of sci fi has served the western, imperial imagination. Hence I'm always on the lookout for anything that can show in a critical light the developmental logics I've tried to highlight in this post. I'd recommend anything from Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani's Cyclonopedia to, say, Ian MacDonald's River of Gods. Even if someone reads such works and takes issue with them for whatever reason, the fact remains that they are clear evidence of how sci fi is a much broader church than it's sometimes given credit for by critics.

In this spirit then, looking ahead, I'm hoping to catch up with the Kenyan sci fi film, Pumzi. The movie takes place 35 years after World War III, the "Water War":

Nature is extinct. The outside is dead. Asha lives and works as a museum curator in one of the indoor communities set up by the Maitu Council [in East Africa]. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she plants an old seed in it and the seed starts to germinate instantly. Asha appeals to the Council to grant her permission to investigate the possibility of life on the outside but the Council denies her exit visa. Asha breaks out of the inside community to go into the dead and derelict outside to plant the growing seedling and possibly find life on the outside.

It's certainly worth reading the filmmaker's response to the question of whether science fiction is new to Africa, in addition to watching the trailer:

Of nihilism, Snog, Heathen Harvests and Transcendental Fascisms

I've started to have a few second thoughts about that "Chilling out in the Cities of the Dead" post. Provocative as Ultra Red's [selective] reading of Deleuze may have been in that instance, I have since come to the conclusion that to remain more consistent with the biological themes of this blog it is necessary to look at what remains when nihilism strips away everything except the laws of cause and effect: i.e. Nature. Bulent Diken's observation in his book Nihilism seems especially pertinent in this context. He highlights how the enemy/friend relationship becomes de-subjectified in the transition to post-politics:

"And it is in this movement, which is also the movement of nihilism, that distinctions such as reality/representation, biology/politics, terror/war against terror tend to disappear today. After all, the canceling of differences is a nihilistic principle par excellence [as noted by Deleuze]" (p. 88).

By extension, investigating the "post-political" rationalization behind the "transcendental fascism" that presents itself as a Third Way between liberal capitalism and communism could prove a fruitful line of inquiry. I see this form of neofascism as equal parts derived from Heidegger and Strasser. There is some affinity as well with the dark ambient I raised in the earlier post in many cases, and moreover, neofolk/martial industrial bands (Death in June, Sol Invictus, Der Blutharsch etc), along with other forms of electronic music. For example, a more disturbing spin could be put on the satire featured in Snog's Kings of Hate, given that the clip was directed by none other than self proclaimed "transcendental fascist" Richard Wolstencroft. Another song entitled The Human Germ (available on YouTube) appears thematically suggestive to some degree of Pentti Linkola's philosophy. In fairness to David Thrussell though I should probably chase up some more background to avoid reliance on guilt by association alone.

So let me turn my attention instead to someone else who is demonstrably comparable to Mr Linkola. I just happened to watch Wolstencroft's rabidly imaginative film Pearls Before Swine last night, which reminded me that the lead actor, "industrial musician" Boyd Rice, has gained some notoriety for his establishment of a thinktank advocating social Darwinist principles (particularly Redbeard's Might Is Right! credo), and also for acting as the public spokesperson for the Church of Satan.


I consider it no more coincidental that these misanthropic forms of cultural expression have come together than the fact that fellow travelers, the Process Church, later morphed into the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Mix nihilism in with the paganism, Deep Ecology, transcendental fascism etc then and you have the makings of a lethal cocktail. I'll give some credit to Michael Moynihan though; he was very forthright in the sense that Gods of the Blood could never have been written without him. I've been listening to (Moynihan's) Blood Axis's Gospel of Inhumanity a lot lately, and the sampling of The Wicker Man on that album is starting to make more sense. Because time is of the essence I can't comment here on Troy Southgate or related controversial figures. I'll try to save that stuff for upcoming posts and recommend checking out Heathen Harvest for a foretaste.

Genetic Capitalism

I'm awaiting arrival of some very bloggable material in the next week or so that can help me expand on some of the issues raised in the "Chilling out in the cities of the dead" post. Oftentimes it seems the ideologies on the dark ambient scene dovetail with the biosocial agenda of "the pure society". Lenin's Tomb provides a useful introduction to the more general historical backdrop here, and one can read between the lines how it was taken up in the dark ambient and other affiliated musical scenes. For the moment though I'm too tied up with my professional editing commitments to elaborate on what such a reading might entail, so I'll just add here that some of the related material I've come across recently has shocked me, and it is just begging for a critical response on this blog.

The Pure Society certainly looks fascinating, but I recommend first revisiting the interview with Professor Steve Fuller conducted on this blog regarding his book Dissent Over Descent to help set a context for how "Nazi excesses do not undermine" the more avowedly sociological contributions to this important debate. Even further back in the archives, I also recommend having another look at Fred Vandenberghe's paper on the biological ramifications of the new capitalism (it was delivered at a conference in Brisbane a few years back, and I asked him to send me a copy).

chilling out in the cities of the dead

Other commitments have swallowed up my blogging energy of late, but I've just read an extraordinary essay that breathes new life into many of the interests featured on this blog. I was doing some research for a new post on dark ambient music, but it seems I'll have to put that on the backburner. Until an opportunity arises then, here is something that speaks to me theoretically, in a way that nothing else I've read in the musical blogosphere has ever managed to do thus far.

Having read the piece I can now start to weave together thoughts about soundscapes in my mind. For example, let's imagine The Place Where the Black Stars Hang as a soundscape of space archaeology, and then relate these thoughts to the album's conditions of production and consumption. This essay allows me to hear Thomas Koner, Burzum, Lull et al in a new light. It's not as simple though as applying the insights of Roger Caillois, for example, given the dystopic inflection of these artists under review. Actually, allow me to rephrase that. I believe that the Caillois style reading of "play", "imagination" and "nature" is functionally equivalent to the interpretation of Myst in the book Digital Play, meaning that the de-centering [sic] of any signs of human labour in such instances follows on from the Doom-like entropic misanthropy of "isolationatism" evoked in dark ambient. Perhaps it's no coincidence then that artists in the latter genre are prone at times to abjuring rational planning and collaboration, substituting instead chaosmagik, [Nazi style] paganism, Deep Ecology etc. I'll hopefully get to say more about this later after refining my model thanks to an interesting essay by Michael Moorcock on the inherent limitations of libertarian and survivalist science fiction (i.e. there seem to be considerable crossovers between the latter, the virtual worlds featured in games, and dark ambient soundscapes).

But first, here's a representative sample from the mindblowing essay in question:

Perhaps one reading of the death of ambient is precisely in the failure to articulate an urban pastoral. The shift from an ambient music based on a pastoral idyll to an almost regressive pessimism could be attributed to a form of the pastoral which condemns the city, unable to sound within its steel canyons a harmonious ideal. However, this would not explain the pleasure produced by these dystopian soundscapes. One could argue that the New York art establishment only embraced ambient music in 1994 when this sort of dystopianism assumed declarations of avant-gardism.

Ambient music may bite the dust, nonetheless the ambiance of the city continues to surround us. If our cities are deceased and our ambiance DOA, then it is because spectacle culture purports to have raised the scene of social exchange to the plateaux of trans-national labor forces and global markets. In this environment, the interest owed on our musical enjoyment is in fact a global debt. A vital task for the composers of ambiance, then, would be to conduct a psychogeography of global space. One strategy for such a psychogeography of global space would involve an alliance of artists (ambient and otherwise) incorporating the culture of lawlessness and violence promoted by trade accords like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization. By claiming a subjectivity out of NAFTA, artists could devise strategies of cooperation (the mystifying buzz word of free markets) based on an erotics of ambient sound. This strategic cooperation would empower local artists through international action which utilizes and undermines the same capitalist flows.

Something must be done, if only to rescue our enjoyment from the deceptions of "chance" sublimation. As Deleuze and Guattari suggest, the death enterprise serves only the designs of sublimation and capitalist appropriation.

In the world of popular music, it seems our entire culture preoccupies itself with the business of pronouncing death. From the subcultural death of ambient music and the mainstream embrace of electronica as a reaction to rock's demise, all the way through to the received wisdom that the Left is dead. Rather than properly asking from where this wisdom originates, we all too often devour these sound-bytes and spit out the logic of capital.