SOC243H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: National Health Service, Pharmacogenomics, Medical Anthropology
Document Summary
William sewell offered an assessment of how the new architecture of world capitalism, associated with the shift from a state centric to a neoliberal paradigm of capitalist political economy, may be related to the state of population health. Focus of the chapter is on biomedicalization of health and work in medical anthropology. Biomedicalization of health and the politics of life itself. Biological entities have become subject to private appropriation and to intellectual property rights and have turned into new sources of capital accumulation or bio capital. Actual achievements of biomedical research have become building blocks of a new political economy of health. Pharmacogenomics- an individualized conception of healthcare through the design of drugs according to the genetic makeup of the individual patient. This includes the prospect of enhancing human life and human capacities through biological manipulation. Emerging political economy of life and health has profit as it"s prime mover and driving force.
