ABSTRACT
The research presented in this article exposes a wide gap between evidence and public policy with regard to influenza vaccination in the context of the 2009 pandemic and with regard to yearly seasonal epidemics. It shows that the World Health Organization and health authorities worldwide failed to protect the interests of the most vulnerable during the 2009 flu pandemic and demonstrates a lack of scientific base for seasonal flu vaccination campaigns. Narrowing the gap between scientific evidence and public health policies with regard to influenza is a serious and urgent matter, one that implies confronting the interests of big pharmaceutical corporations and their allies at academic and government levels. The credibility of science and the well-being of many are at stake.
Subject(s)
Evidence-Based Medicine , Health Policy , Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype , Influenza Vaccines , Influenza, Human/prevention & control , Adult , Aged , Child , Drug Industry , Europe , Female , Humans , Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype/immunology , Influenza Vaccines/adverse effects , Influenza Vaccines/immunology , Influenza, Human/epidemiology , Influenza, Human/mortality , Mass Vaccination , Orthomyxoviridae/immunology , Pandemics/prevention & control , Pregnancy , Publication Bias , United States , World Health OrganizationABSTRACT
El presente artículo analiza el tema de la medicalización de los problemas sociales como una extensión indebida del modelo médico. Esta medicalización tiene una triple consecuencia negativa que se caracteriza como: némesis metodológica, némesis clínica y némesis social. Se aportan ejemplos de la literatura médica contemporánea y se profundiza particularmente en la medicalización de la violencia social y en el abuso ideológico de la ciencia que esta demuestra tanto en el pasado como, lamentablemente, también en la actualidad.
The present article analyzed the topic of medicalization of social problems as an inappropriate extension of the medical model that brings about three negative consequences: methodological nemesis, clinical nemesis and social nemesis. Several examples were drawn from the current medical literature, with a special emphasis on the medicalization of social violence and the ideological misuse of science in the past and, unfortunately, at present.