Public health and the knowledge industry

Abstract

Knowledge plays an important role in health care. The production and diffusion of health-related knowledge are increasingly under the control of private commercial interests, which are characterized by conflicts of interests that result in abuses of power. Considerable research has been done on the medical-industrial complex and its role in the production of power imbalances and the consequent abuses, but little attention has been dedicated to the role played by the publishing industry, which can be subject to the same problems. The widely diffused idea that 'frequent and major changes' occur in medicine, albeit unsupported by clearcut evidence, is an effective marketing tool for both the pharmaceutical and publishing industries, who feed and thrive on physicians' insecurities. The production and distribution of knowledge should be addressed as a strategic component of public health.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos e suas contribuições para a extensão universitária no século XXI

“…Sobre os desafios da Educação Superior no século XXI, as relações entre Estado, mercado e sociedade compreendem o conhecimento como elemento estratégico para a integração dos sistemas de ensino com os serviços locais, além de desempenhar importante papel nas relações de poder estabelecidas pelos atores sociais envolvidos (CAMARGO JUNIOR, 2009). (2008) evidenciam que a concretização do conhecimento pluriversitário ocorre com mais expressividade nas parcerias entre as Universidades e as iniciativas de mercado.…”

Indicadores de Citación y Relevancia Científica: Genealogía de una Representación

“…For Bourdieu, Merton does not raise the relationship between these ideal values of science, the norms it professes, and the social structure of the scientific universe, in other words, "the mechanisms which tend to facilitate "control" and communication, evaluation and retribution" (Bourdieu, 1997:86). However, it is this idealized vision of science which, even today, makes invisible the participation of industrial economic logic, corporate interests (Camargo Jr., 2009), or ideological-cultural values in the shaping of representations, practices, and discursivities within the scientific field.…”

Revistas científicas argentinas de acceso abierto y circulación internacional. Un análisis desde la teoría de los campos de Pierre Bourdieu

“…En términos generales, las falencias editoriales de las revistas científicas de América Latina, más allá de la disciplina o del área de conocimiento en el que se inscriban, se plantean de forma comparativa a modos de producción científico-editoriales con una alta participación del campo económico, que cuentan con una capacidad operativa para producir a gran escala, lo que les permite sostener el dominio del mercado científico-editorial (Martinovich, Arakaki y Spinelli, 2014). Dado el volumen y la estructura del capital económico específico que poseen, transfieren su capital económico a las instancias burocráticas -proceso denominado por Bourdieu (1997a: 51) como "tasa de cambio" entre los diferentes tipos de capital-tornándose agentes con capacidad de disputar lineamientos de las políticas públicas en ciencia y tecnología en diversos países para ampliar y sostener su participación en el mercado (Farias et al, 2017;Gómez-Morales, 2018;Alperin y Rozemblum, 2017;Priego et al, 2017;Vasen y Lujano Vilchis, 2017;Camargo Jr., 2009;Villarreal, 2018). Frente al poder de estos agentes científico-editoriales ¿cómo disputar el capital simbólico de modelos alternativos creados para dar respuesta a entornos productivos con baja participación del campo económico?…”