Feminist Issues in Contemporary Biopolitics 3

Feminist Issues in Contemporary BioPolitics – Seminar 3 – ‘Getting Beyond the Usual Suspects’

This one-day event, on 14th September 2007 at Cardiff University, will discuss modes of theorising, researching and performing the relationship between scientists, clinicians, policy-makers and ‘the public’.

Drawing together academics researching these topics with stakeholders in the field of biopolitics, the session will combine presentations on work-in-progress with time for discussion and debate. The session will also include time to reflect on the previous seminars in the series, to draw out thematic links and explore the possibility of future work in the area.

Topics for discussion will include:

• The relationship between ‘public consultation’ and policy formation in biomedicine and technoscience
• Inclusion and exclusion in the practice and processes of public engagement and public consultation
• How ‘upstream’ can ‘upstream public engagement’ be when biomedical research and translation are framed as matters of extreme urgency?
• The appropriate role for feminists / academics / feminist academics in public consultation, public engagement and policy formation
• Citizens, consumers, patients and stakeholders as concepts for framing publics and audiences
• National and international contexts

The seminar will be held in the Glamorgan Building at Cardiff University between 9.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. on Friday 14th September 2007. Refreshments and lunch will be provided. There is no cost to attend the seminar, but places are limited so please register soon. Deadline for registration is Friday August 31st 2007. To register, please apply to Mel Evans at CESAGen (evansm6@cardiff.ac.uk). Full programme and joining instructions will be circulated week commencing Monday 3rd September 2007.

Feminist Biopolitics II: Report

A report from this workshop, including notes from the discussions and further resources and references has been published on the Feminist Biopolitics website (linked above). The workshop included the following speakers:

Maureen McNeil

Feminist reproductive politics and analysis: maintaining a critical edge
Abstract

There is a strong tradition of feminist research in the area of reproductive science and medicine which began in the 1970s. Recently feminist scholars have begun to produce meta-narratives of the field itself (see esp. Thompson 2005). Awareness of this work and critical reflection on it is very important to ongoing research and policy in this field. In this presentation I want to reflect on some of the features of this field, some of the dilemmas arising within it, and some of the recent reviews of it. This will include consideration of:

• technoscientific 'moral pioneers' (Rapp 1999)
• technoscientific romance with innovation
• technoscience in context

Clare Williams

Reflections on multidisciplinary research and innovative reproductive technologies
Abstract

All of my recent research collaborations have involved multidisciplinary research teams, and all have focused on the views of practitioners and scientists who work in the area of new medical technologies. In this paper, I focus on the implications for women’s health of the expansion of an innovative reproductive technology, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). I explore key ethical dilemmas which all focus around the ‘limits’ of reproductive autonomy. Drawing on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s three ethical principles (seriousness, risk and consistency) I examine discussions and debates around PGD for late onset/susceptibility conditions; the status of carrier embryos; the consistency of the reasons for PGD compared to prenatal diagnosis; and future developments such as pre-implantation genetic haplotyping, human embryonic stem cell research and increasing global reproductive tourism. To conclude, I highlight some broader questions in relation to multidisciplinary research on reproductive technologies and women’s health. Some points in the discussion of panel I:The discussion picked up on the issue of balance (which Maureen McNeil had highlighted as problematic) and compared this to ‘consensus’. It was noted that scholarship validates balance but that this is not necessarily a good thing – although it is normatively constructed as such. In relation to innovation it was noted that public engagement is now being built into the design of technologies (e.g. nanotechnology) and that this requires reflection on how ‘normalisation’ occurs.

Alexandra Plows

An autobiographical account of developing feminist methodologies

Sarah Parry

Doing and studying public engagement in stem cell research: Methodological issues for developing inclusive events on gender sensitive topics
Abstract

In this paper I will briefly discuss our findings from our first phase of fieldwork collected as part of an ESRC funded project: The Social Dynamics of Public Engagement in Stem Cell Research. Focusing on the issues raised by different tissue sources used to obtain stem cells, I will highlight some of the divergent views we have heard. From here, I will move on to discuss the methodological aspects of this project as we move into our next phase of research, which aims to bring different actors together around specific issues raised by stem cell research. Key issues for the research team include methods for encouraging a sociologically informed discussion and how to bring in our sociological analysis from the first round, thus avoiding over- privileging 'scientific' accounts of stem cell research. The need to balance participants' request for further information about stem cell research with our research aims for accessing complex issues, such as how women's bodies are constructed in stem cell research practices and discourses, remains a difficult balancing act for the research team.

Contemporary Issues in Biopolitics

Confirmed speakers are:

• Maureen McNeil
• Michal Nahman
• Sarah Parry
• Alex Plows
• Celia Roberts
• Clare Williams

The event is free but please register so we have an idea of numbers. Details at the link above and in the January post below.

Virtual Symposium On Visual Culture and Bioscience

A fantastic discussion facilitated by Suzanne Anker and joined by a really interesting collection of contributors. Well worth stopping by this discussion of bioscience, the arts and visual culture. Live from 8th-13th March 2007 but likely to be online for a while.

Feminist Issues in Contemporary UK biopolitics

Feminist Issues in Contemporary UK Biopolitics - a CESAGen dissemination seminar series

Seminar 2 - 'Methods, tools and approaches: research relationships'

Date: April 27th 2007
Time: 10.00 am – 4.30 pm
Venue: CESAGen, Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University

This is the second in a series of one day events, organised to discuss issues regarding research relationships in social research on biomedicine and technoscience. There will be presentations by key researchers and others engaging with this topic, and an opportunity to debate and discuss the challenges raised, as well as the existing and prospective feminist resources available to respond to them.

Potential issues for discussion include the challenges and opportunities – methodological and epistemological, amongst others – arising from relationships between:

* Social scientists and life scientists, clinicians and other health professionals
* Practitioners in the arts and practitioners in technoscience and biomedicine
* Researchers and their co-respondents
* Interdisciplinary research teams
* Science and policy actors and publics

The aim of this seminar is to encourage informed debates with and between feminist academics and other engaged stakeholders. Following a morning of short presentations, the event will have a workshop style format, with emphasis on relatively informal participation and interaction, discussing key issues and themes.

Invited speakers include:

Alexandra Plows

Celia Roberts

Sarah Parry

Clare Williams

Maureen McNeil

The seminar is free of charge and lunch will be provided. Places are limited so please contact Keith Calvert (k.calvert2@lancaster.ac.uk or 01524 510842) to book a place.

http://www.cesagen.lancs.ac.uk/events/current/feminist_biopolitics.htm

Pre-empting resistence to hybrid embryos

Leading members of the scientific community are pre-empting, and presumably hoping to influence the HFEA’a attempts to regulate research around the creation of animal/human embryos.

Pre-empting any official decision by the HFEA (more usually credited as a permissive body and seen by scientists as making the right decision in allowing therapeutic cloning and in sourcing human eggs for research) - those applying for hybrid-embryo research licences, and other supporters, appear to be subjecting the HFEA to a trial by PR in an attempt to get permission for this kind of research through.

The early and unofficial indication that the HFEA might not agree to hybrid embryos is one of the first instances of resistance by the HFEA to a licence application - resulting in numerous simultaneous press releases and a letter to the media. The resulting headlines have focussed on the risk to patients that opposition to the research allegedly poses. Such hyperbolic imaginings seem rather exaggerated – the relationship between experiments of this kind and clinical trials is tenuous and the relationship to treatment and cures is beyond anyone’s experience - time lines for such hopeful futures are constantly moved beyond the horizon of the life time of current patients. Through these news stories the risk to an imagined future humanity is being figured as an immediate concern which should outweigh any other considerations. This doesn’t seem like the best way to understand or regulate science.

The ability of the HFEA to stand as an independent body is surely under question, when placed under such widely circulated and publicly mediated pressures to licence any proposals involving embryos.

These events have yet to fully unfold but if the licences are issued as a result of this aggressive PR it does not bode well for any claims that independent regulation can operate in the UK.

Other stories:
Scientists support hybrid embryos
Why are ministers opposed to hybrids?
Hybrid embryo work 'under threat'
Scientists attack plan to ban 'hybrid' embryos

Sourcing Eggs for Research: A Reponse

The seminar; Feminist Issues in Contemporary UK Biopolitics - 'Sourcing eggs for biomedical research' went really well. It was attended by a group of engaged and reflective participants and we managed to pull together a response to the HFEA as a result. It was a very productive event, many thanks to all who attended and contributed towards making this a great day. The response document is linked above and includes a list of participants.

This was the first in a series of three seminars, the second one will be on the theme of 'Relationships in Feminist Research' and will consider issues around relationships with other researchers, scientists, respondents, publics and new relationships in biopolitical formations such as bioart. This will be in late spring. Details to follow.

Feminist Issues in Contemporary UK Biopolitics

Feminist Issues in Contemporary UK Biopolitics

Cesagen Seminar: Sourcing Eggs for Biomedical Research

Date: November 20th 2006
Time: 10.00 am – 4.30 pm
Place: Cesagen, 6 Museum Place, Cardiff University, Cardiff

This is a one day event organised to discuss urgent issues regarding the sourcing of human eggs for biomedical research.

There will be presentations by key researchers and others engaging with this topic, and an opportunity to debate and discuss the many social, economic and ethical challenges raised, as well as the existing and prospective feminist resources available to respond to them.

The aim of this seminar is to catalyse informed debates with and between feminist academics and other engaged stakeholders. Following a morning of short presentations, the event will have a ‘workshop’ style format, with emphasis on relatively informal participation and interaction, discussing key issues and themes. This will be an opportunity to ‘fast track’ knowledge about key policy and scientific moves, developing forms of public engagement, and to debate their social/ political/cultural/ethical implications.

Invited speakers include - Michal Nahman, Sarah Parry, Celia Roberts, Sarah Sexton, Karen Throsby,

The seminar is free of charge and lunch will be provided.
Places are limited so please contact Mel Evans by 10th November

There will be a dinner for seminar participants on the night of 19th November. To book for dinner, and for accommodation, travel and other inquiries please contact
Mel Evans

Seminar Organisers: Alex Plows, Joan Haran, Kate O’ Riordan

Contact details for admin: Mel Evans (0)29 2087 0024
E-mail: evansm6@cardiff.ac.uk

Also see the event in Edinburgh on similar issues:

Share your views about women donating eggs for Stem Cell Research: A public debate

Eggs for research - public consultation

The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority (HFEA) is carrying out a public consultation about the issue of egg donations and egg sharing for research. Respond to the consultation at the HFEA site (link above) or take part in the public discussions in relation to this:

Talking about stem cell research

Another event is planned at CESAGen cardiff on the 20th November, details to follow shortly.

Women who give eggs to science to get cut price IVF

Global news coverage has provided a variety of perspectives on this significant development. The HFEA approval of cheap treatment for IVF patients who are prepared to give some of their eggs to cloning research, precedes their autumn consultation on this issue.

Also in the news this week - Tony Blair has been represented as divided from George Bush on the issue of licensing stem cell research.

Blair to lure US stem cell firms
The UK's Blair is in the US to build bridges with US businesses
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to promote Britain as an ideal place for stem-cell research when he meets US biotechnology firms later.
Mr Blair is on a four-day visit to California to try to boost co-operation between the state and the UK.

'Maverick scientist' produces peer reviewed papers

On Thursday of this week the UK Guardian newspaper reported that Dr Panos Zavos had now published evidence of his experiments in reproductive cloning. Whilst not addressing the legal and ethical issues, the paper appears to offer evidence that is more acceptable, in scientific terms, than the announcements made directly to the media in 2004.

In the Guardian article Dr Zavos is interestingly described as a 'reproductive scientist' - a description that reinforces the impression that the lines between scientific research and clinical application are ever more blurred in the areas of both 'therapeutic' and 'reproductive' cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer).

Following up on Professor Hwang - is this a possible political economy of human genomics?

In relation to the faking of evidence by scientists in general, and in relation to the case of Professor Hwang in particular, Lisa Jardine makes the following observations:

"Political pressure from governments, pouring money directly into work in research areas they have set their hearts on leading, surely does have the capacity to distort even the best-established procedures.

What we must be watchful for are situations where the funding of science demands a rate of return on research investment that increases intolerably the temptation to gamble. Might the blame for Hwang's deception lie, ultimately, at the feet of those who financed him so lavishly, and the state machine that over-inflated his reputation?"

From The pressure to hoax: A POINT OF VIEW By Lisa Jardine

Summer Events

Getting Underneath the Fact:natural categories & biological facts as historical and emergent objects

A conference organised by the Centre for Science Studies in conjunction with the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, at Lancaster University.
To be held at the Institute of Advanced Studied from the 28th to 29th August 2006.

Reviewing Humanness: Bodies, Technologies and Spaces
EASST Conference, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, 23rd-26th August 2006

Updates

Cloning
1) Much earlier this month the ‘10th Anniversary’ of Dolly the sheep was noted in ‘BioNews’ the newsletter of the Progress Educational Trust. Roger Highfield, the co-author of Highfield and Wilmut ‘s (2006) After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning, noted that he and Professor Ian Wilmut have faith about the future of cloning, and have confidence in particular groups in the governance of that future:

‘We have faith in people too. We have confidence that a well-informed democracy can keep abuses in check; we have confidence in women who would not donate eggs to clone a dictator, but would to help a patient with an urgent clinical need; and above all else we have faith in the vast majority of scientists, who are no different from anyone else in wanting to reduce suffering and make the world a better place’ (Highfield in BioNews 366:10/7/06)

The Centre for Genetics and Society (USA) reported on ‘A Decade After Dolly’ rather differently - and amongst other things - highlighted the reporting of some of the complexity, and confusion around financial incentives for female students, and egg donation in the Boston area.

Embryo Screening
2) Last month, announcements of advances in embryo screening techniques were made by UK researchers, and were reported in terms of both hope, and of concern:

‘Embryo test offers hope to parents’ (The Guardian UK, 19 June 2006)


‘New Embryonic Test Raises Concerns: Technique To Detect Genetic Disorders Spurs Fears Of 'Designer Babies'

WisCon and Teknolust in Madison, Wisconsin

The fabulous WisCon is running this Memorial Day weekend in Madison, Wisconsin.

As we are in town for this event we are also screening ‘Teknolust’ by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Details of the film can be found on the Teknolust website and the Internet Movie Database. Many, many thanks to the people at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who helped us organise this!

Screenings are here:

University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, 1180 Observatory Drive, Room 610 Social Science, Wednesday May 24th 4-6pm and Thursday May 25th 3-5pm, discussion afterwards.

All welcome!

We are really interested in your views on this film and human genomics in the media more generally – please contact us if you have more to say on this.

Art, Politics and the Life Sciences

Workshop today - the third in a series on Art, Politics and the Life Sciences at Lancaster University



Other random interesting links/refs in this area:

The Arts & Genomics Centre (Amsterdam)


ArtSci Chicago (Chicago)
Connecting Scientists, Artists, and Everyone In-Between in the Chicago Area (& Beyond...)


Art and Science Collaborations Inc (New York)

Travelling Science: Testing Women

April 23rd 2006 - The Observer (UK) reported that:

"A revolutionary system for testing unborn babies for life-threatening diseases has been launched by British scientists."

In the language of ‘revolutions’ and ‘breakthroughs’, with the emotive ‘babies’, the dramas of ‘life-threatening’ etc we were brought the story that a UK team were going to provide safe (but revolutionary) foetal testing which, through the use of a blood test for the mother; 'ends risk to foetus'. Great.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1759357,00.html

In October 2005 Prof Dennis Lo, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was also providing results that could help to develop a DNA test for the foetus without invasive procedures, through blood testing the mother. Interestingly the issue of identity, and how a foetus and mother can be made to appear as separate entities in the maternal bloodstream was more visible last autumn:

"The team in Hong Kong has found a way of picking out what is baby and what is mother, by looking at a molecular biology level."

Meanwhile, in the Journal of the American Medical Association [Dhallan R et al. (2004) JAMA 291, 1114-1119] the message that foetal blood could be tested through the maternal bloodstream was news in 2004.

Mother is baby: old news

'Hands off our ovaries' and 'Donate eggs'

Interesting dialogues:

Professor Wilmut suggested that egg donations might be necessary in 2005: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/press_releases/05-07-26_wilmuteggdonors.htm

'Hands off our ovaries' formed in 2006:
http://www.handsoffourovaries.com/