Race in a Bottle: Law, Commerce and the Production of Race in Biomedicine

Special edition in the ir/relevance of race seminar-series

Lecture

Under the auspices of the AISSR programmegroup 'Anthropology of Health, Care and the Body', Jonathan Kahn will present a lecture, related to his new book ‘Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age’

Abstract

This presentation will explore a self-reinforcing dynamic whereby regulatory mandates, commercial incentives, and scientific practice interact over time to produce flawed understandings of observed racial differences morbidity, mortality, or drug response as caused by race-specific genetic variation.  

It will argue that regulatory mandates to promote the inclusion of racially identified subgroups in biomedical research collided with advances in genetic technology in the 1990s to lay the foundations for a cycle that has come to drive new conceptualizations of race as a genetic construct.  The increased regulatory salience of race led, in turn, to increasing use of racial categories in requests for regulatory approvals for drugs and patents, often to gain commercial advantage in the pharmaceutical marketplace.

Racialized information in drug approvals and patents forms the basis for subsequent research, development, and marketing of new products.  The rising use of race in biomedical practice and commerce, in turn, has circled back to shape regulatory practice at agencies such as the PTO where patent examiners, embracing new understandings of race as genetic, have on occasion affirmatively mandated the inclusion of racial categories in biomedical patent applications, providing the basis for new race-based research and marketing.  From law to commerce to medicine and back again, this dynamic both capitalizes upon and itself produces distorted and highly problematic understandings of the relation between race and genetics. 

This analysis begins with a consideration of how law and commerce played central roles in the creation of BiDil as an “ethnic” drug to treat heart failure in African-Americans.  It then moves on to elaborate on some of the broader legal and policy implications of BiDil in the context of genomic medicine and the politics of heath care.   It will explore the “strategic reification” of race as genetic in the context of pharmacogenomics and connect it to larger issues concerning genetics and the politics of difference in health care and beyond.

About the lecturer

Holding a Ph.D. in History from Cornell University and a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law, Dr. Jonathan Kahn writes on issues in history, politics, and law and specializes in biotechnology's implications for our ideas of identity, rights, and citizenship, with a particular focus on race and justice. He teaches in areas of constitutional law, torts, health law and bioethics. He is the author of 'Race in a Bottle: The Story of Bidil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genome Age' (Columbia U. press, 2012)." 

In 2007, Dr. Kahn received a grant from National Human Genome Research Institute's (NHGRI) Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) Research Program to support a two year project in which he explored the ethical and legal ramifications of the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in the context of gene patenting and drug development. Dr. Kahn is an internationally recognized expert on this topic. His scholarly research and writing related to the legal and ethical implications of how racial categories are produced and disseminated in the course of drug development are widely published, including the article "Race in a Bottle" in the August 2007 issue of Scientific American. The article pertains to BiDil, the first medication ever approved by the FDA to be targeted to a specific racial group. An exhibit quoting Dr. Kahn on this topic also is part of the nationally touring museum exhibit, "RACE – Are We So Different?" a project of American Anthropological Association and funded by the Ford Foundation & National Science Foundation. 

Dr. Kahn has been published in a wide array of journals ranging from the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics, Seton Hall Law Review, and the Stanford Law & Policy Journal to the American Journal of Bioethics, the American Journal of Public Health, and Nature Genetics. He has also published a book titled, "Budgeting Democracy: State-Building and Citizenship in America, 1890-1928" (Cornell U. Press, 1997). His previous grants include a major grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project titled, "Colliding Categories: Haplotypes, Race, and Ethnicity." 

Before coming to Hamline, Dr. Kahn practiced with the firm of Hogan & Hartson after graduating from law school and then went on to complete his Ph.D. and teach at Bard College. Later, he served as a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard University and has also taught at the University of Minnesota, Cornell University School of Law and Western New England School of Law. (http://law.hamline.edu/dr-jonathan-kahn.html) 

 

About the Seminar Series 

In this seminar series the relevance and irrelevance of race are being discussed as an object and concept of research in order to explore ways to talk about race without naturalizing differences. The series goes beyond a standard definition of race, one that is allegedly relevant everywhere, and situates race in specific practices of research. In addition the series gives room to the various different versions of race that can be found in the European context and explore when and how populations, religions, and cultures become naturalized and racialized. Scholars from different (inter)disciplinary fields (such as genetics, anthropology, philosophy, cultural studies, history, political sciences, science and technology studies) are invited to address the issue of race through a paper presentation. The seminar is held every six weeks at the University of Amsterdam. 

Webpage Seminar Series: http://bit.ly/VKg6tt

 

Published by  AISSR