Fall 2005 Brown Bag Series
Thursday,
September 15, 2005 -- Hasan Shanawani
- Summarize the controversies over the use of race in biomedical research,
- Identify important shortcomings in published reports of genetic studies
where race is used as an independent variable, and
- Critique the current approach to genetic studies in diseases where health disparities exist.
The Problem of “False Confidence” in Microbicide Trials in Zimbabwe
and Lessons Learned from Microbicide Trials Elsewhere
Paul Ndebele is an Assistant Visiting Professor at the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences at Michigan State University. He holds a Master of Science degree in Demography and is currently a Bioethics Fellow in the SARETI Program at University of Kwa Zulu Natal where he is undertaking further studies in Research Ethics. Paul has several years experience in the area of Bioethics and he was one of the first three Fellows in the Fogarty Bioethics Programme at Johns Hopkins University (Maryland) in 2001. Paul has a keen interest in research oversight programs as well as in the operations of IRBs.
Pregnant Bodies as Public Spaces
Drawing upon advice books, cable television shows, popular web sites, medical textbooks, and photo essays, I argue that our contemporary culture of prenatal care transforms the pregnant body into a public space in three interdependent senses: the space of the pregnant body is visually displaced from and experienced third personally by the pregnant woman; the pregnant body is a site of civic investment and meaning; the pregnant body's normative and interpretive possibilities are fixed by a common narrative space, which is itself constituted by pubic cultural products. I argue that these transformations have important consequences for women's identity and agency during the vulnerable period of pregnancy. Participants can expect to learn some of the history of medical representations of pregnant and fetal bodies, from the birth of professional obstetrics in the seventeenth century to the present; how women's experience of pregnancy is shaped by medical and cultural representations of pregnant bodies; the ethical challenges raised by the routinization of fetal ultrasounds; and how our contemporary practices of prenatal care impact women's agency.
Rebecca Kukla is an associate professor of philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and an affiliated associate professor at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. From 2003-2005 she was a Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics and Health Policy at Johns Hopkins University, and in 2004 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Food and Nutrition Assistance Research Program at the USDA. She is a member of the executive board of the Centre on Values and Ethics and a member of the Research Ethics Board at Carleton University. . She is the author of Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers' Bodies (Rowman and Littlefield 2005).
Thursday,
December 1, 2005 -- Mark Largent
Beyond Eugenics: The Uses of Coerced Sterilization in Twentieth-Century America
Coerced sterilizations in the United States are generally associated
with the American eugenics movement. In this context, the sterilizations were
motivated by a belief that complex social, economic, moral, and medical problems
could be solved by reducing the number of people considered biologically and
socially inferior by authorities. However, American politicians and medical
providers worked to coercively sterilize patients and prisoners years before
the start of the American eugenics movement, and the sterilizations continued
for years after eugenic motivations for public policy initiatives were widely
discredited. This presentation will explore some of the motivations that led
health care providers to coercively sterilize at least 60,000 Americans during
the twentieth century as well as the relationships between coercive sterilization,
social control, and the authority of the American scientific and medical communities.
This presentation will examine the ways in which particular social, political,
and economic contexts and assumptions motivated American politicians, biologists,
and health care providers to advocate involuntary sterilization as a solution
to complex social and medical problems. Moreover, it will examine how these
contexts and assumptions continue to influence public policy and health care
policy decisions well into the twenty-first century.
Mark Largent is an Assistant Professor in James Madison College at Michigan State University, where he teaches history of science and science policy courses. He earned his Ph.D. in 2000 in the History of Science and Technology from the University of Minnesota, and for the past four years he has been Visiting Assistant Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. His research focuses on the role of biologists and health care providers in the American eugenics movement, particularly in advocating sterilization as a solution to social, economic, and political problems
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine and the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1 hour in category 1 credit per session towards the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the activity.
