The Globalization of Clinical Trials: The Promise and Perils

January 28, 2011

Research ethics is often said to have been born of scandal. The field is regularly accused of having developed in response to particular cases and transgressions. Whether or not this is true of the field in general, it does seem to be the case for much of the literature on the ethics of international research. In When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects, the anthropologist Adriana Petryna sets out to portray not scandal or crisis, but the routine offshoring of clinical trials. Through a series of gripping interviews and detailed case studies, Petryna follows the lifecycle of international research and traces its connections to health systems, legal systems, and entitlement programs. She also provides a glimpse into the complex social relations on which the research process depends. In particular, the reader sees the way that the labor is divided, the responsibilities delegated, the risks shifted, and decisions with far-reaching social consequences shaped by a spectrum of market, regulatory, and cultural influences. (The Hastings Center)