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PubMed2002

Bioethics and the commodification of biotechnology.

Although recent advances in biotechnology have brought with them a raft of ethical issues, other ethical challenges are arising not from new technologies, but rather from the expansion of biotechnology into "commodified" mass consumer applications, non-medical applications with no "purpose" other than entertainment or the satisfaction of consumer demand. In other words, commodity products targeted at a market that biotechnology does not currently exploit--the mass consumer market. This article will discuss two such examples of commodified biotechnology, the use of DNA sequence comparisons to construct genealogies; and the use of such comparisons to derive "ethnic" identities, and will conclude with a discussion of the possible consequences of such applications.

Biotechnology↗
PubMed1998

Geneticizing disability: the Human Genome Project and the commodification of self.

This article explores the potential impact upon people with disability of some of the technological information being uncovered by the Human Genome Project. While the project has been promoted as promising positive benefits to society, its effect, in our present values climate, is potentially damaging. While we can map impairment, we cannot, as yet, cure it. And, in a society which embraces values such as utilitarianism and economic rationalism, we are choosing more and more to eliminate rather than care. We are seeing a conceptual transformation--the geneticization of self--which has enormous implications for the lives of people with disability. The author argues that scientific endeavor, which has been constructed as occurring within a culture of impartiality and empiricism, actually operates within an uncontested value base which devalues disability. She concludes that the Human Genome Project needs to be reframed within a broadened ethical framework of inclusion.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1994

Gender differences in tobacco use and the commodification of tobacco in Central Borneo.

Historical and anthropological studies of non-Western societies have concluded that there is no cultural group in which the use of tobacco is substantially more common among women, although there are societies without appreciable gender differences in tobacco use. Interpretations of this pattern, influenced by well-documented changes in the United States, have concentrated on the greater use of tobacco by men, attributing it to aspects of traditional sex roles such as male power and male control of scarce resources. This analysis places more weight on the changes in both sex roles and local economies which accompany the transition from subsistence-orientated production to a market economy. Among the Lahanan, a relatively isolated group of horticulturalists living in Central Borneo, adult women, who control the production and distribution of tobacco, are more likely than men to smoke are also heavier smokers. Increasing contact with the industrialised world is rapidly changing this pattern with young men switching to manufactured cigarettes and the better educated of the young women not smoking at all. This study suggests that gender differences in tobacco use are probably inconsequential in societies where tobacco is grown for home consumption, but become increasingly substantial as manufactured cigarettes replace local tobacco products.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

"Come back when you're dying:" the commodification of AIDS among California's urban poor.

As with any other long-term illness, the decline in health that accompanies symptomatic HIV infection often has a profound negative impact on employment and personal finances. However, research to date on the financial consequences of AIDS has focused largely on middle-class working individuals, and cannot account for the experiences of those who are already poor and unemployed at the time of their infection. We conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 33 Californian heterosexual couples in which one partner was infected with HIV and the other was HIV-negative. Most couples interviewed were low-income, marginally housed, and either former or active substance users. Unlike their middle-class counterparts, it became clear through the course of our study that many participating couples were living in a world in which a positive HIV antibody test or an AIDS diagnosis could result in an improved quality of life by allowing for increased access to Supplemental Security Income, subsidized housing, food and services. This situation is in part a consequence of recent policy decisions related to the "War on Drugs" and welfare reform. These policies have contributed to the creation of an economy of poverty in which the sick, needy, and addicted must compete against each other for scarce resources. Within such an economy, an HIV or AIDS diagnosis may actually operate as a commodity.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1998

Radio and the commodification of natural medicine in Ecuador.

This paper explores the discourse that is being created around medical commodities in one Ecuadorian city in an effort to understand how desire for new medical products is generated and sustained. Commercial natural medicine, which includes vitamins, herbal remedies and tonics is a relatively new addition to the medical marketplace in Ecuador, yet the popularity of these products seems to be growing rapidly. Much of the success of natural medicines is due to promotional campaigns, most notably radio programs, that emphasize and manipulate, important cultural themes about the body, identity, morality and social success. Although on the surface natural medicine seems to be creating a radically new discourse about the body and illness causation, that discourse ultimately serves only to reinforce the unequal social relations associated with capitalist marketplaces.

Advertising↗
PubMed2002

Commodification of the sacred through intellectual property rights.

Indigenous and traditional peoples have made major contributions to the enhancement and conservation of the world's biodiversity. Although this is increasingly recognized in international discourse, rights of these peoples to continue their traditional practices are threatened by the globalized economy. Science implicitly denies their contribution to biodiversity conservation and enhancement by referring to their lands as 'wild' or 'wilderness'. It also effectively undermines their rights by claiming that the biodiversity fostered by their traditional practices is a global resource. In order to counter these threats, we need not only to strengthen the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples, but also to reverse global trends that substitute economic and utilitarian models for the holistic concept of the 'sacred balance'.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed1999

The United States health care system under managed care. How the commodification of health care distorts ethics and threatens equity.

Describing the U.S. health care system means describing managed care under commercial forces. Managed care creates new moral tension for practitioners, but more importantly, in its current form it intensifies the commercialization of health expectations and interactions. The largely unregulated marketing of health services under managed care has been a major factor in the increasing number of uninsured citizens, while claims for cost reduction through managed care are equivocal. Risk-rating practices integral to the current medical marketplace thwart concerns for justice in allocation and create vulnerabilities for almost everyone. The political-moral concern of the early 1990s for a right to health care is nowhere in sight.

Cost Control↗
PubMed1999

The commodification of international migration: findings from Thailand.

"The organisation of international contract-labour migration within Asia has been increasingly dominated by commercial agencies acting as intermediaries between workers and foreign employers. The principles underpinning the gatekeeping role of such agencies in the East Asian migration system are examined. A consideration of the international labour recruitment system in Thailand is based on survey work among agents, community leaders and recently returned migrants."

Asia↗
PubMed2000

From service to commodity: corporization, competition, commodification, and customer culture transforms health care.

Corporate medical practice, a market economy, and a consumer culture are transforming health care. The service relationships of doctors with patients are now commodities. The doctor, directed by disease management protocols (to improve outcomes, reduce costs, and standardize care), is, in effect, providing programmed service commodities. In addition, medical-surgical specialties, now "packaged" for the care of body parts and conditions (as Breast, Stroke, Obesity, Aneurysm Centers), are also made service commodities, marketed by newspaper advertisements, TV, radio, and Internet to patient-customers in search of a healthy body. In sum, the promise of corporate practice in a competitive market economy is greater efficiency and productivity to reduce the costs of care that are a burden on industries and the state. Viewed from office encounters with patients, such transformation of services to commodities changes the doctor-patient relationship and the moral mission of care.

Economic Competition↗
PubMed2001

Commodification of water--the wrong prescription.

The world faces a crisis of water stress and scarcity. This paper argues that current policies of economic globalization and privatisation are exacerbating environmental problems and that the real solutions will have a fundamentally different ethical basis.

Commerce↗