How does the
development of a new therapeutic model, whose potential emergence
threatens the hegemony of an already established biomedical model,
affect, and how is it affected by law, science and society? To anchor
this question in a particular context, I conduct an anthropological
study into how scientific innovation, established biomedicine and
informal health care co-exist and interface in contemporary Brazil, and
how their relations are mediated by legal institutions and other actors.
For it, I delineate and explore ‘life assemblages’ related and
interconnected through the use of ‘immunostimulant drugs’ for the
treatment of autoimmune diseases, which are conventionally treated with
‘immunosuppressant drugs’ worldwide.
My central case study is the ‘anti-brucellic vaccine’ (VAB) – a drug
that was produced in Brazil and largely used by patients against several
autoimmune diseases. After more than 10 years seeking to become
authorized by medico-legal authorities, the VAB remained an object of
controversies and was recently taken as basis for the development of a
further biotechnological innovation called Complex of Essential Amino
Acids (CAE) that is currently experiencing a process of approval. So
much so that it is currently commercialized as a
‘manipulated/experimental drug’ while clinical tests are running in
parallel.
Inspired by Actor-Network-Theory, I follow the VAB/CAE in order to
re-trace associations and map the main relations that have constituted
it as a biotechnological innovative agent and, simultaneously, as an
object of judicial dispute and regulation. Related to that I compare the
VAB/CAE case to other cases of circulation and regulation of
immunostimulant drugs as contested innovations in Brazil, such as the
synthetic phosphoethanolamine. In so doing, I weave an ethnography of
the VAB/CAE out of a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork through
participant observation (including autoethnography) and,
complementarily, digital methods and documentary research.
It seems that, from an international perspective, the VAB/CAE case
reveals how research into the production, circulation and regulation of
immunostimulant therapies for autoimmune diseases in Brazil can provide
critical insights into the emergence of regenerative medicine as a
transnational process. Moreover, whilst shedding light on legal
conflicts between established regulatory science and challenging
innovative biotechnologies, the VAB/CAE case highlights how the renewal
of established biomedicine for autoimmunity partially unfolds by means
of informal pharmaceutical economies, other cultures of legality and
respective moralities.
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