Epigenetics in the neoliberal 'regime of truth'

by Charles Dupras and Vardit Ravitsky
Hastings Center Report - 2015

Here is an excerpt:

In this paper, we argue that the impetus to create new biomedical interventions to manipulate and reverse epigenetic variants is likely to garner more attention than effective social and public health interventions and therefore also to garner a greater share of limited public resources. This is likely to happen, we argue, because of the current biopolitical context in  which scientific findings are translated. This contemporary neoliberal “regime of truth,” to use a term from the historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, greatly influences the ways in which knowledge is being interpreted and implemented. Building on sociologist Thomas Lemke’s Foucauldian “analytics of biopolitics” and on literature from the field of science and technology studies,  we present two sociological trends that may impede the policy transla-tion of epigenetics: molecularization and biomedicalization. These trends,  we argue, are likely to favor the clini-cal translation of epigenetics—in other words, the development of new clinical tools fostering what has been called “personalized” or “precision” medicine.

In addition, we argue that an over-emphasized clinical translation of epigenetics may further reinforce this biopolitical landscape through four processes that are closely related to neoliberal pathways of thinking: the internalization and isolation (liberal individualism) of socioenvironmental determinants of health and increased opportunities for commodification and technologicalization  (economic liberalism) of health care interventions. Hence, epigenetics may end up promoting further the mobilization of resources toward technological innovation at the expense of public health and social strategies. Our analysis therefore first presents how the current biopolitical landscape may bias scientific knowledge translation and then circles around to explain how, in return, the outcome of a biased translation of epigenetics may strengthen our contemporary neoliberal “regime of truth.”

The paper is here.

Science Is Not Your Enemy

An impassioned plea to neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians

By Steven Pinker

The New Republic

Originally published August 6, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

Scientism, in this good sense, is not the belief that members of the occupational guild called “science” are particularly wise or noble. On the contrary, the defining practices of science, including open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods, are explicitly designed to circumvent the errors and sins to which scientists, being human, are vulnerable. Scientism does not mean that all current scientific hypotheses are true; most new ones are not, since the cycle of conjecture and refutation is the lifeblood of science. It is not an imperialistic drive to occupy the humanities; the promise of science is to enrich and diversify the intellectual tools of humanistic scholarship, not to obliterate them. And it is not the dogma that physical stuff is the only thing that exists. Scientists themselves are immersed in the ethereal medium of information, including the truths of mathematics, the logic of their theories, and the values that guide their enterprise. In this conception, science is of a piece with philosophy, reason, and Enlightenment humanism. It is distinguished by an explicit commitment to two ideals, and it is these that scientism seeks to export to the rest of intellectual life.

The entire story is here.

The D.S.M. Gets Addiction Right

By Howard Markel
The New York Times - Opinion
Orignally published June 5, 2012

WHEN we say that someone is “addicted” to a behavior like gambling or eating or playing video games, what does that mean? Are such compulsions really akin to dependencies like drug and alcohol addiction — or is that just loose talk?

This question arose recently after the committee writing the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M.), the standard reference work for psychiatric illnesses, announced updated definitions of substance abuse and addiction, including a new category of “behavioral addictions.” At the moment, the only disorder featured in this new category is pathological gambling, but the suggestion is that other behavioral disorders will be added in due course. Internet addiction, for instance, was initially considered for inclusion but was relegated to an appendix (as was sex addiction) pending further research.

(cut)

Disease definitions change over time because of new scientific evidence. This is what has happened with addiction. We should embrace the new D.S.M. criteria and attack all the substances and behaviors that inspire addiction with effective therapies and support.

The entire opinion is here.

Drug Data Shouldn’t Be Secret

By Peter Doshi and Tom Jefferson
The New York Times - Opinion
Originally published April 10, 2012

IN the fall of 2009, at the height of fears over swine flu, our research group discovered that a majority of clinical trial data for the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu — data that proved, according to its manufacturer, that the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization, serious complications and transmission — were missing, unpublished and inaccessible to the research community. From what we could tell from the limited clinical data that had been published in medical journals, the country’s most widely used and heavily stockpiled influenza drug appeared no more effective than aspirin.

After we published this finding in the British Medical Journal at the end of that year, Tamiflu’s manufacturer, Roche, announced that it would release internal reports to back up its claims that the drug was effective in reducing the complications of influenza. Roche promised access to data from 10 clinical trials, 8 of which had not been published a decade after completion, representing more than 4,000 patients from every continent except Antarctica.

(cut)

In response to our conclusions, which we published in January, the C.D.C. defended its stance by once again pointing to Roche’s analyses. This is not the way medical science should progress. Data secrecy is a disservice to those who volunteer their bodies for clinical trials, and is dangerous to those being asked to swallow approved medicines. Governments need to become better stewards of the scientific process. 

The entire story is here.

File drawer effect: Science studies neglecting negative results

By Dan Vergano

USA Today: Science Fair

Some scientific disciplines are reporting far fewer experiments that didn't work out than they did twenty years ago, suggests an analysis of the scientific literature.

In particular, economists, business school researchers and other social scientists, as well as some biomedical fields, appear increasingly susceptible to the "file-drawer" effect -- letting experiments that fail to prove an idea go unpublished -- suggests the Scientometrics journal study by Daniele Fanelli of Scotland's University of Edinburgh.

"Positive results in research studies overall, became 22% more likely to appear in scientific journals from 1990 to 2007," says the study, which looked at a sample of 4,656 papers over this time period, looking for trends in science journals.

"One of the most worrying distortions that scientific knowledge might endure is the loss of negative data. Results that do not confirm expectations—because they yield an effect that is either not statistically significant or just contradicts an hypothesis—are crucial to scientific progress, because this latter is only made possible by a collective self-correcting process. Yet, a lack of null and negative results has been noticed in innumerable fields. Their absence from the literature not only inflates effect size estimates in meta-analyses, thus exaggerating the importance of phenomena, but can also cause a waste of resources replicating research that has already failed, and might even create fields based on completely non-existent phenomena," says the analysis.

The analysis looked at studies where authors proposed a hypothesis and then sought to test it, either confirming it for a positive result, or not. Overall, 70.2% of papers were positive in 1990–1991 and 85.9% were positive in 2007. "On average, the odds or reporting a positive result have increased by around 6% every year, showing a statistically highly significant trend," says the study.

Japan produced the highest rate of positive results, followed by U.S. results. Some regions, such as Europe, and disciplines, such as Geosciences and Space Science, didn't show the positive-result increases:

"The average frequency of positive results was significantly higher when moving from the physical, to the biological to the social sciences, and in applied versus pure disciplines, all of which confirms previous findings. Space science had not only the lowest frequency of positive results overall, it was also the only discipline to show a slight decline in positive results over the years, together with Neuroscience & Behaviour," says the study.

Geosciences and Plant & Animal sciences showed a flat rate of positive vs. negative results since 1990.

The entire piece can be read here.