Anthropology and Pharmaceuticals in Developing Countries-11

[In the first half of Dr. van der Geest's article (MAQ.15(3):59-62, 1984), a review of the literature on activities of pharmaceutical companies in Third World countries was presented. Several case studies were cited which document how both the structure of the industry and its practices appear to place higher priority on profits than on people's health. For example, as multinational corporations, pharmaceutical companies are difficult to regulate; pricing and sales promotion methods (such as alteration of drug product information inserts) lead to overprescription; and powerful prescription drugs are allowed to be sold "over-the-counter" without a prescription. At the end of the first half of the article, Dr. van der Geest began to discuss why anthropologists (unlike other disciplines) have been so reluctant to conduct research on pharmaceuticals (in his survey of the literature, there was only one reference by an anthropologist to illegal drug distribution in developing countries). He asks why, given the emphasis on self-treatment in medical anthropology, there has been little interest in selfmedication through Western pharmaceuticals. One explanation offered is the strong emphasis in medical anthropology on indigenous practices (e.g., disease classification, herbalists, priesthealers, witchcraft, and sorcery) and the relatively little emphasis on modern medical services and self-medication, perhaps because "the latter topics carry so little exotic attraction for the ethnographer." A second explanation offered IS the reluctance of anthropolog~sts to cross disciplinary boundaries in research (despite claims of an "interdisciplinary ethos'J, particularly to work with pharmacologists. Part one concluded with the statement: "The 'thing~Jica­ tion' commonly applied to the use of pharmaceuticals may indeed give the impression that these synthetic products are a Jar cry from the living society studied by anthropolog~sts. I hope to make clear that such an impression would be a tragic mistake." Part two d1scusses how pharmaceuticals is a fertile area for anthropolog~·cal investigation. -Ed)