Global Pharmaceuticals

“[A] welcome addition to the growing field of study that might be called ‘Pharmaceuticals and Society.’ . . . Global Pharmaceuticals provides some valuable discussions on the recruitment of patients into drug trials, the access/availability of needed medications, and the marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies, including the suppression of adverse drug reaction data.” - John Abraham, American Journal of Sociology

“[A]s a collection of ethnographic case studies trying to disentangle the Gordian knots in the increasingly interconnected and complex world of global pharmaceuticals, especially in the marketing of lifestyle drugs, this book is important.” - Dinesh Sharma, Health Affairs

“[F]ascinating. . . .” - Sjaak van der Geest, Anthropological Quarterly

“Although the book is billed as an ethnographic approach, the authors are by no means all academic anthropologists but come from a variety of disciplines and have wide-ranging country experience. Although the editors are all from US universities, the discussion is not United States–centric or Eurocentric but also ranges across developing countries and Asia. The breadth of experience, views, and approaches is refreshing and makes for a collection that should appeal to and stimulate both a development and health-system audience." - Tim Ensor, JAMA

“The book's laudable political purpose is to induce a rethinking of the system of pharmaceutical production and distribution and promote a more equitable global pattern of availability and access. . . . [T]he collection is to be recommended. There is sufficient colour in each of the individual essays to hold attention, and collectively the essays provide a range of viewpoints that highlight the complexity of the global expansion of pharmaceutical trade, the logics, stakes and interests that impel it and the political, economic and ethical challenges it represents.” - Evan Doran and David Henry, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health

“This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the complex local nuances involved as neo-liberal globalisation increasingly redefines the location of human rights, justice and equity away from the social sphere and towards the individual body of the biotechnical citizen.” - Sami Timimi, British Journal of Psychiatry

“When successfully applied, the anthropological approach, as presented in the book, has the capacity to dissolve our everyday reality into a puddle of assumed beliefs. . . . [T]his anthropological approach offers an ‘Aha!’ experience, making us aware of what we knew but could not articulate.” - Daniel Luchins, American Journal of Psychiatry

“Covering an extremely timely topic, Global Pharmaceuticals is a strong and innovative volume with substantial field-based insider knowledge of how pharmaceuticals actually attach themselves to and transform local social relations.” - Rayna Rapp, author of Testing Women, Testing the Fetus

“Hundreds of millions of people around the world are denied access to desperately needed medications. Eliminating the inequalities of the current system of drug production and distribution requires a deep and nuanced understanding of that system. By offering ethnographically grounded investigations of the dynamics of the global pharmaceutical industry, this volume advances significantly an urgent research agenda.” - Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Director, Department of HIV/AIDS, World Health Organization

“This collection of brilliantly incisive essays gives us the necessary standpoint from which to view the increasing global circulation of pharmaceuticals, the spreading influence of ‘Big Pharma,’ and the growing use of medication to shape identities in a neoliberal world order. It is a work of superior, innovative scholarship, addressing issues of major contemporary significance. - Warwick Anderson, author of The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health, and Racial Destiny in Australia