Complete summary of the Biomedical Sciences & Society (AB_1011) course from the 2nd year of biomedical sciences, VU Amsterdam. This summary contains all the information needed for the exam, and includes all the material from the lectures. This summary was made during my second year of biomedical sc...
,Lecture 1 | Introduction 3
Vaccines 3
Science and technology in context 3
Gene-edited baby (article in the Guardian) 4
4 views on technology and society 4
Yuval Harari vs Kevin Kelly — di erent views on S&T and society 4
Tutorial 1 | Intertwinement: anti-conception & NIPT 5
Development of the birth control pill 5
Development of the Non Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) 5
Lecture 2 | Science in society 6
Times of change 6
The structure of public debates about science 7
What is science? 7
Thinking about technology 8
Philosophy of technology: relation human - technology 8
What is the e ect on public debate? 9
Open the black box 9
What are the implications? 9
Issues raised in article by Keulartz et al 10
Tutorial 2 | Norms and values in biomedical ethics: cochlear implants
and informed consent 11
Values and norms 11
Development of the cochlear implant (CI) 11
Protection of people in medical research 13
HeLa cells 14
Tutorial 3 | Science, risk and public communication 14
Science communication 14
Issues raised in article by Irwin 15
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, Lecture 1 | Introduction
VACCINES
- What is a vaccine?
- A preparation of a weakened/killed pathogen (such as a bacterium/virus), or a portion of
the pathogen’s structure, that is administered to prevent/treat infection by the pathogen
and that functions by stimulating the production of an immune response
- What makes vaccines a success?
- Relevant actors:
- People: doctors, managers, nurses, developers, administrators, etc.
- Infrastructure and logistics: cooling, transport, roads, ships, hospitals, etc.
- Goods and products: needles, liquids, fridges, paper, etc.
- Systems and structures: administration, nance, government, etc.
- Knowledge and experience: science, practical experience, etc.
- Vaccination works because of herd immunity
- What can we learn about vaccine hesitancy from the COVID-19 experience?
- People remain unvaccinated for a variety of reasons:
- Some cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons
- Others struggle to navigate diverse source of information
- Many hesitate, for example because of speci c medical conditions
- And some are ‘anti-vax’ because of personal principles
- Increasing the vaccination rate therefore requires careful collaboration between all
relevant ‘actors’: people, infrastructure, goods, systems and structures, and knowledge
and experience
- A complex debate:
- Sovereignty over your own body versus protecting public health?
- What does ‘inclusivity’ really mean, in this context?
- When we oblige vaccination for everybody and thereby making sure that people
are protected against the disease, or when we allow people to make their own
decisions and give people against vaccination their voice in society?
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN CONTEXT
- Science - technology — society are intertwined: they emerge through mutual shaping
- ‘Fork-shaped’, messy processes of development: some technologies were never developed
to become what they currently are
- The development trajectory of scienti c and technological developments is messy:
unexpected technological breakthroughs and societal developments can in uence the
direction of scienti c and technological development, making it move in other, unexpected
directions than originally planned by scientists and engineers, resulting in fork-shaped
trajectories with dead ends and multiple possible routes
- Examples: internet, bicycle, mobile phones, all sorts of medicines and other biomedical
technologies (such as viagra and the HeLa cell line)
- Why is this relevant?
- S&T as part of the solution to all sorts of challenges
- Climate, sustainability, security, poverty, inequality; health and well-being
- BUT: S&T is often part of the problem as well
- Pollution and emissions, growing inequalities, unexpected and unwanted e ects
- AND: there are numerous mismatches between S&T and society
- Mismatch: societal impact of a technology is di erent than the researcher’s intention
- Technologies that don’t work for vulnerable groups or minorities
- Technologies that don’t address the problem of the target actor at hand, but of
another actor
- Example: cochlear implant
- What is the problem? For whom?
- Biomedical technology developers do not operate in isolation from society: there is an
intertwinement
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