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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Copies of Wen-Hua's dissertation
are available for review in the STS office (E51-185)<br><br>
<font size=4><b><i>Please join us for Wen-Hua Kuo's dissertation
defense:<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><div align="center"><font size=4 color="#0000FF">Japan and
Taiwan in the Wake of Bio-Globalization: <br>
Drugs, Race and Standards<br><br>
</font><font size=4>Wen-Hua Kuo<br><br>
</font><font color="#FF0000">Thursday, August 18, 2005<br><br>
1:00 PM<br><br>
E51-275<br><br>
</b></font></div>
<br><br>
<b><u>ABSTRACT<br><br>
<br>
</u></b>This is a study of Japan and Taiwan's different responses to the
expansion of the global drug industry. The thesis focuses on the
problematic of "voicing (FASHENG)," of how a state can make its
interests heard in the International Conference on Harmonization of
Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use
(ICH). The ICH is a unique project that facilitates the formation of a
single global market by creating universal standards for clinical trials
and drug approvals. Tracing, through "slow motion" ethnography,
step by step, why Japan claims a racial difference requires additional
local clinical trials with "Asian bodies," this thesis rejects
conventional interpretations of protectionism for Japan's resistance to
globalization. It argues that more than protectionism is involved, and
that a rich ethnographic understanding of Japan's medical infrastructure
is required to understand the claim of biological, cultural, and national
differences, as well as biostatistical arguments about the ambiguities of
"extrapolation" of clinical data from one place to another.
<br><br>
The inherent ambiguities of efforts to create "bridging"
studies as a temporary solution to these problematics created a deadlock
in the ICH, and provided an opening for Taiwan, another Asian state,
which does not enjoy formal recognition from the world, to speak for
itself to this conference, and to create the fragile, but politically
critical, possibility of becoming a clinical trial center for Asian
populations. The language of genomics and biostatistics become in the
more recent period the vehicles for both Japanese and Taiwanese efforts
at "voicing" their concerns. Both genomics and biostatistics
look different in these contexts than they do from the United States or
European Union. <br><br>
In sum, (1) Japan's and Taiwan's (with a briefer look at Singapore)
response, as well as "global ethnographic objects" such as the
ICH, provide important tools to rethink the comparative method as well as
universalizing claims of harmonization. (2) Race, culture, and the
nation-state are transformed as categories through the contemporary
reworkings of genomics and biostatistics. (3) The thesis demonstrates
that abstract accounts of the spread of clinical trials and resistance in
various parts of the world are not to be trusted unless they include
detailed probings of local understandings, identity issues, and problems
of voicing.<br>
</blockquote>
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Kris Kipp<br>
Academic Administrator<br>
Program in Science, Technology, and Society<br>
Doctoral Program in History, Anthropology, and <br>
Science, Technology and Society (HASTS)<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
77 Mass. Ave., E51-185<br>
Cambridge, MA 02139<br>
Phone: 617-253-9759<br>
Fax: 617-258-8118<br>
Email: kipp@mit.edu</body>
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