Therapeutic Innovation and Acceptability of Risks: Introduction of Anti-Hemophilic Concentrated Products in the Seventies

• Published in: Sciences sociales et santé Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 75 - 98
• Main Author: Carricaburu, Daniele
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: 01.12.1999
• Subjects: Blood Diseases; Health Care Services; Medications; Risk; Technological Innovations; Treatment Methods
• ISSN: 0294-0337

The introduction of new anti-hemophilic products to the market in the 1970s is addressed, noting that they changed the way the disease was treated through establishing intravenous self-treatment as the norm. It is argued, however, that while these new drugs had definite benefits, they also increased patients' risk of obtaining needle-borne infections, like that of hepatitis. Here, the therapeutic plan of action behind these drugs is analyzed, looking at its influence on the spread of the AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) virus. The shaping of this plan by different groups, eg, the French Assoc of Hemophiliacs & the National Blood Transfusion Center, is described. Emphasized is how the risk of infection by hepatitis viruses fell within the scope of the rhetoric of blood transfusion risk, a risk that had actually existed since the 1930s. In L'Economique, une dimension cachee? (A Hidden Dimension of the Economy?), Gerard de Pouvourville responds to Carricaburu's article. It is contended that her lack of information on the role of the state & health insurance companies weakened her paper. An effort is made to illuminate the place of these organizations in the time period discussed by Carricaburu, showing that the integration of an analysis of the economic context into her study would have lent weight to her work. 1 Table, 22 References. Adapted from the source document.