Life as a Biocapital - Biological Futures, a Bet of the Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells Private Banks in Brazil

Abstract

Biopolítica Células-tronco do cordão umbilical Dispositivos de segurança Biobancos

Subjectives and biotechnologies in umbilical cord-trunk bodies: Addresses to psychology.

“…Given that people are exposed to various hazards, speeches from physicians, and more recently from commercial companies in Regenerative Medicine, so this has driven actions of a variety of people to govern their lives and health. In another work, we have already pointed out that the valuation of the genetic code and neoliberal strategies of infusing market values into social and affective relations are elements of the business logic of oneself, in which life gains an entrepreneurial dimension in policies of subjectivity in which health is taken as a good [29].…”

“…In this perspective, stem-cell banks "materialize the market for bonds and bodies organized by real, potential, biological and cultural codes, maps and disabilities, and at the same time accentuate fear" [29]. As Waldby [10] points out, the suspicions about the clinical value of the private storage of umbilical cord blood are dissolved by their speculative value and the future possibilities that the family can provide.…”

“…Thus, managing the life translated into biocapitalis presupposes the increasing action of companies and technologies, multiplying the practices of consumption and marketable goods, among which the one of security. Proliferating services that aim to ensure and protect from uncertainty, as well as revealing the acceleration of the anticipation of the future expressed in the calculations of susceptibility and in a market of biological investments [29]. In this scenario, the figure of the indebted man emerges, since the capitalization of life has made possible perennial control games in which the subject is the one who is always in debt, since he is a consumer [32].…”