A indústria do conhecimento, o médico e a indústria farmacêutica: uma coprodução de técnicos e técnicas de poder

Abstract

This study is an approach to the macro-political engine where the dominant power (represented by the pharmaceutical industry) articulates with the knowledge industry promoting the construction and transmission of a biomedical knowledge with the same logic production and distribution of capitalist commodities. The pharmaceutical companies have been investing in clinical research projects with the intention to scientifically legitimate its products. The investigation of the financial role of these clinical trials was based on the interviews with four physicians who are also medicine professors engaged in these pharmaceutical projects. The results showed that the research protocols are elaborated by the pharmaceutical industry without the participation of the engaged doctors; the whole access to the research data is only available to the main research supervisors and the results are submitted to previous data selection. The dominant power of the pharmaceutical industry is exercised through market power techniques. It establishes a technical power position to the physicians enrolled in the research who are also in service of the industries interests. This relativistic approach concerning health values claims for a critical and ethical revision.