Article ID: CBB680292467

Misoprostol: The Social Life of a Life-saving Drug in Global Maternal Health (March 2021)

unapi

This paper is about a drug called misoprostol and its controversial clinical and social lives. Although originally developed as a prevention for gastric ulcers, in the 1980s, it developed an off-label reputation as an abortifacient. The drug’s association with clandestine abortion has profoundly shaped its social life as a marginal and suspect character in the realm of global maternal and reproductive health where it has the potential to prevent two major causes of maternal death––postpartum hemorrhage and unsafe abortion. The social life of misoprostol has also been shaped by the question of authoritative practice, that is, the question of who can deliver medicine. Both issues are about the specters of misuse of misoprostol: off-label, illegal, immoral, or by unlicensed providers. In this paper, I focus ethnographically on two women’s health nongovernmental organizations that have been conducting clinical testing and advocacy for the use of misoprostol for reproductive indications in global maternal health settings. Drawing on the notions of pharmaceutical activism and protocol feminism, I describe and analyze how the tools of evidence and authoritative practice have been reassembled in new networks of expertise toward the social justice goals of life, access, and dignity for women.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB680292467/

Similar Citations

Book Mikkael A. Sekeres; (2022)
Drugs and the FDA: Safety, Efficacy, and the Public's Trust (/isis/citation/CBB614307145/)

Book Amy Marie Hay; (2021)
The Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests (/isis/citation/CBB039979128/)

Article Monamie Bhadra Haines; (February 2019)
Contested credibility economies of nuclear power in India (/isis/citation/CBB710438620/)

Book Greene, Jeremy A.; Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel; (2012)
Prescribed: Writing, Filling, Using, and Abusing the Prescription in Modern America (/isis/citation/CBB001214574/)

Article Chiara Cosentino; (2016)
Invisible Women: Ireland and the Fight to Access Safe and Legal Abortion (/isis/citation/CBB073020496/)

Article Natassia F. Brenman; Richard Milne; (May 2022)
“Ready for What?”: Timing and Speculation in Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Development (/isis/citation/CBB016946522/)

Article Jongyoung Kim; Heeyun Kim; Jawoon Lim; (2020)
The Politics of Science and Undone Protection in the “Samsung Leukemia” Case (/isis/citation/CBB267983165/)

Article Giampietro Gobo; Barbara Sena; (2022)
Questioning and Disputing Vaccination Policies. Scientists and Experts in the Italian Public Debate (/isis/citation/CBB026130989/)

Article Ute Kalender; Christine Holmberg; (August 2019)
Courtesy work: Care practices for quality assurance in a cohort study (/isis/citation/CBB109122041/)

Article Anne Kerr; Tineke Broer; Emily Ross; Sarah Cunningham Burley; (August 2019)
Polygenic risk-stratified screening for cancer: Responsibilization in public health genomics (/isis/citation/CBB774833590/)

Article Klaus Hoeyer; Susanne Bauer; Martyn Pickersgill; (August 2019)
Datafication and accountability in public health: Introduction to a special issue (/isis/citation/CBB575402754/)

Article Shi Lin Loh; Sulfikar Amir; (June 2019)
Healing Fukushima: Radiation hazards and disaster medicine in post-3.11 Japan (/isis/citation/CBB754363980/)

Article Klaus Hoeyer; (August 2019)
Data as promise: Reconfiguring Danish public health through personalized medicine (/isis/citation/CBB486735939/)

Article Linda F Hogle; (August 2019)
Accounting for accountable care: Value-based population health management (/isis/citation/CBB281463388/)

Authors & Contributors
Hoeyer, Klaus
Miner, Skye A.
Haines, Monamie Bhadra
Kalender, Ute
Maayan Sudai
Bertotti, Andrea M.
Concepts
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Medicine
Public health
Controversies and disputes
Authorities; experts
Pharmaceutical industry
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
Places
United States
Argentina
North America: United States; Canada
Japan
Italy
Germany
Institutions
Accountable Care Organizations (Medical care)
Samsung
United States. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment