Biomedical Ambiguity: Race, Asthma, and the Contested Meaning of Genetic Research in the Caribbean

by Ian Whitmarsh

Overview

Steadily increasing numbers of Americans have been diagnosed with asthma in recent years, attracting the attention of biomedical researchers, including those searching for a genetic link to the disease. The high rate of asthma among African American children has made race significant to this search for genetic predisposition. One of the primary sites for this research today is Barbados. The Caribbean nation is considered optimal because of its predominantly black population. At the same time, the government of Barbados has promoted the country for such research in an attempt to take part in the biomedical future.

In Biomedical Ambiguity, Ian Whitmarsh describes how he followed a team of genetic researchers to Barbados, where he did fieldwork among not only the researchers but also government officials, medical professionals, and the families being tested. Whitmarsh reveals how state officials and medical professionals make the international biomedical research part of state care, bundling together categories of disease populations, biological race, and asthma. He points to state and industry perceptions of mothers as medical caretakers in genetic research that proves to be inextricable from contested practices around nation, race, and family.

The reader's attention is drawn to the ambiguity in these practices, as researchers turn the plurality of ethnic identities and illness meanings into a science of asthma and race at the same time that medical practitioners and families make the opaque science significant to patient experience. Whitmarsh shows that the contradictions introduced by this "misunderstanding" paradoxically enable the research to move forward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801474415
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	06/03/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ian Whitmarsh is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for the Study of Diversity in Science, Technology, and Medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     vii
Introduction: Vernaculars in Race and Disease Science     1
Contestations of Race     15
The Nation as Biomedical Site     33
Asthma Variations     56
(Re) Categorizing Asthma and the Rational Pharmaceutical     69
Biomedical Partnerships: Making Genetics Significant     98
Misgivings in Medical Participation     118
Participant Mothers     145
Home Visit Translations     157
Biomedical and Anthropological Excesses     183
Notes     191
References     205
Index     221

What People are Saying About This

Rayna Rapp

In Biomedical Ambiguity, Ian Whitmarsh makes an original and important contribution to the ongoing debate about the genetics of complex diseases and their 'racial' or 'hereditary' susceptibilities. His ethnographic insight into the process by which race, genes, and environmental factors are negotiated in small nations at the behest of large corporations and scientific research teams is important to understanding how such ideas, practices, and drugs are being marketed worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

Whitmarsh's investigation compels a rethinking of the biomedical stabilization of race and of enigmatic illnesses like asthma. His insight into the process by which race, genes, and environmental factors are negotiated in the Caribbean at the request of large corporations and scientific research teams is important. It will help the reader understand how such ideas, practices, and drugs are being marketed worldwide.

New England Journal of Medicine - Malcolm N. Blumenthal

Whitmarsh's investigation compels a rethinking of the biomedical stabilization of race and of enigmatic illnesses like asthma. His insight into the process by which race, genes, and environmental factors are negotiated in the Caribbean at the request of large corporations and scientific research teams is important. It will help the reader understand how such ideas, practices, and drugs are being marketed worldwide.

--Malcolm N. Blumenthal, MD "New England Journal of Medicine"

From the Publisher