The Department of Philosophy is excited to welcome Bennett Holman from Yonsei University in South Korea for a special guest seminar.
Bennett Holman is an Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Underwood International College (Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea). His work is at the intersection between medical and social epistemology. His current work is focused on articulating how scientific epistemology must be altered in areas of science that are heavily influenced by industry funding. His work brings the tools of history, philosophy, statistics, and formal modeling to bear on this question.
Please join us on Friday 16 February in Highfield House A09 at 4pm - all are welcome and no registration is required.
Abstract:
Manufactured Values: Industry Front Groups, Looping Effects, and Regulatory Decisions
Evaluating a case to determine whether it is an example of medical overtreatment frequently trades on values: “Which side effects are important enough to include in any measurement of harm? Are some side effects more important than others? Who should decide—patients, clinicians, or researchers? And what if they disagree?” (Carter et al. 2015). In an effort to deal with just this issue the United States Food and Drug Administration created the patient focus drug program.
Combining philosophy with qualitative methods from the social sciences, the talk first examines the October 2014 patient meeting for Flibanserin and female sexual dysfunction. I show that industry-funded participants presented a unified message that was almost completely distinct from other participants. I argue that this process can be understood as an example of a “looping effect” (i.e. women have internalized the industry’s narrative which now genuinely structures their experience). Setting this case in context of broader efforts by industry to shape the experience of patient groups, we argue that: At best this significantly complicates efforts to incorporate patient values into risk/benefit judgments and at worst, it belies the presupposition that patient interests are an objective, immutable, and knowable factor to be incorporated into medical decision making and regulatory decisions.