ABSTRACT
The cochlear implant, an electronic device by means of which some totally deaf people can be provided with a form of hearing, has been increasingly used since the early 1980s. The mass media have typically presented it as an example of the remarkable success of modern technological medicine. In France and The Netherlands, the countries on which this paper focuses, as in many others, deaf communities have rejected the technology. They have protested at its use with deaf children in particular. Rather than locating it in a history of medical progress, they have located it within a history of their own oppression. Each historical rendering is used to try to influence policy. The contest, however, is an unequal one.
Subject(s)
Cochlear Implantation , Child , Cochlear Implantation/history , Cochlear Implantation/statistics & numerical data , Equipment Design , France , History, 20th Century , Humans , Medical Laboratory Science , NetherlandsABSTRACT
Each group involved in the development of a new medical technology constantly assesses the value of the emergent technique in terms of the group's own specific goals and conventions. The history of infrared thermography demonstrates the social nature of this assessment process.
Subject(s)
Social Change/history , Technology Assessment, Biomedical/history , Thermography/history , Arthritis, Rheumatoid/diagnosis , Breast Neoplasms/diagnosis , Female , History, 20th Century , Humans , Infrared Rays , United Kingdom , United StatesABSTRACT
Inequalities in rates of sickness and mortality between social groups has long been a matter of concern and of inquiry in Britain. Disciplinary differentiation has resulted in the problem now being treated within what have become three distinct intellectual traditions. These are social administration, epidemiology, and sociology, and the accounts they provide differ significantly from each other. This is partly because 'the' problem is somewhat differently defined in each; and partly because of their different orientations to theory and to practical amelioration. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and raises the possibility of a more adequate explanation than any one discipline provides. The implications for study of social administration are considered.
Subject(s)
Epidemiology , Health Services Accessibility , Public Policy , Social Class , Sociology, Medical , Humans , Models, Theoretical , Social Welfare , United KingdomABSTRACT
This assessment of the value of science policy research in the making of policies is based on a lecture given at a meeting of the Sociology of Science Study Group of the British Sociological Association last March. The thoughts it contains are of course those of Dr Blume himself, and not of the Department of Education and Science or the Council for Scientific Policy.
