Protocol and beyond: experiment and care during a TB vaccine clinical trial in South Africa

Dixon, Justin

Protocol and beyond: experiment and care during a TB vaccine clinical trial in South Africa

Master Thesis

2013

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Social Anthropology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

There has been a substantial increase in the amount of biomedical research being conducted in resource-poor regions of the world since the 1980s, particularly clinical trials involving human subjects. With a particular focus on public-sector clinical trials, a number of anthropologists have recently conducted important ethnographic research into the ground-level operations of clinical research organisations and the relationships between doctors, co-ordinators, participants and non- participants. It has been argued that formal ethics and the scientific practices they govern obscure a relational and affective dimension of clinical trials, which is both necessary for, and transcends, the requirements of trial protocols. On the basis of ethnographic research with a clinical research organisation in South Africa specialising in trialling tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, I contend the explanatory value of tracing the diseases 'under the microscope' from global public health agendas to ground-level research practices when exploring the relationships between the 'ordered separations' of medical research structures and the relational-affective dimension they obscure. Through a close examination of TB at different levels of scale, I aim to open up more avenues of enquiry into the multifarious factors that shape the important relations that develop between clinical research organisations and those on whom research is conducted.

Keywords

Social Anthopology

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