Search

International audience; In February 1889, a 26 year-old Brooklyn woman, Ida Hunt, was told by a well-known surgeon, Mary Dixon Jones, that she suffered from an internal tumor that may burst and put her life in danger. Upon Dixon Jones’s advice Hunt underwent an abdominal surgery, developed a peritonitis and died. The Brooklyn newspaper, The Eagle, used Hunt’s death to mount a campaign against Dixon Jones, accusing her of being a knife happy, sadistic and corrupted practitioner, who persuaded naive women to undergo unnecessary and risky operations. In fact, Hunt was a savvy consumer of medical services, who consulted numerous doctors for her severe gynecological complaints, carefully evaluated her options, and in all probability elected Dixon Jones precisely because she advocated radical surgical solutions. In 2008, the company 23andMe included mutations in BRCA genes which predispose for breast and ovarian cancer in their “health package”. The company’s experts gathered testimonies from grateful clients who found out unexpectedly that they were BRCA mutation carriers and decided to undergo prophylactic surgeries (ablation of ovaries, and, for some, mastectomy). 23andMe lost in 2013 the right to propose health information in the US, but in the same year the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) recommended to include BRCA mutations among incidental findings that should be reported to patients. This recommendation, and the 2014 proposal to generalize the testing for BRCA mutations, were made in spite of lack of firm data on efficacy of preventive measures to reduce cancer deaths in mutation carriers, especially those without a family history of breast and ovarian malignancies. People, advocates of BRCA testing argue, have the right to know about their health risks in order to be able to make informed decisions about their management. This article takes these two cases as a starting point of reflections on continuity and change in self-care practices, with an accent on their gendering.

Apoiado em ampla bibliografia internacional, este artigo discute a contribuição dos estudos de gênero para uma análise crítica do conceito de ciência universal. As intersecções entre estudos de gênero e ciências tratam do papel do saber científico – apreendido como objetivo e neutro – na construção do natural, definido como entidade claramente separada do cultural ou do social.AbstractBased upon a wide international bibliographical survey, this paper discusses the contribution of gender studies to a critical analysis ofthe concept of universal science. The intersections between gender studies and sciences deal with the role of scientific knowledge - given as objective and neutral – in the construction of the natural, defined as an entity clearly separated from cultural or social realms.

International audience; Le ‘travail reproductif’ désigne ici l’ensemble des activités liées à la fabrication d’enfant par le biais des biotechnologies dans le contexte actuel de mondialisation. Ce numéro interroge sous cet angle les incidences des nouvelles techniques reproductives sur la vie des femmes et le système de genre, à partir de travaux sur la France, les Etats-Unis, l’Inde, l’Afrique et les Territoires Palestiniens.

International audience

International audience

International audience; The introduction of new techniques of prenatal diagnosis in the 1960s transformed already back then, and continues to transform, the epistemic space of human heredity. These techniques – like karyotyping, amniocentesis, obstetrical ultrasound, and, more recently, analysis of free foetal DNA in maternal blood – modify the way in which people influence the transmission of traits to their offspring and thus have the potential to define what a “normal,” “acceptable,” or “valuable” human being is.

International audience

International audience; This article Aims:at analyzing the factors that mold the material cultures of contemporary biomedicine. It considers the historical development of diagnostic techniques, how they define the "norm", and influence the evolution of conducts of professionals as well as those of concerned members of the family. Following a brief reconstruction of the historical evolution of pre-natal diagnostics, we present a detailed case analysis of a particular anomaly: aneuploidy of the sexual chromosomes (ACS). Although some cases of ACS may represent grave and even life-threatening deficiencies, the great majority of children who possess an abnormal number of sexual chromosomes experience relatively minor problems. In many cases, the very diagnostic of ACS only surfaces during the person's adolescence. Thus, especially in contexts that permit legal abortion, the prenatal diagnosis of these syndromes renders visible the construction of the "abnormal fetus" and the "risk of having an abnormal child", as a techno-social phenomenon that emerges over time through the interaction of biomedical techniques, the organization of medical work, legal limitations, and sociocultural considerations.

Cytological screening for cervical cancer (the Pap smear), the first attempt at mass screening for a human malignancy, is often presented as a non-problematic demonstration of the feasibility of such screening. Screening for this tumor became a model for screening for other malignancies: breast, colon and prostate. My text follows the early history of the Pap smear and the conditions that led to its transformation into a routine screening test, despite persistent problems in stabilizing the readings of microscopic slides. It then analyzes the consequences of diffusion of the Pap smear, controversies surrounding this test, the mutual shaping of diagnostic tests and the disease cervical cancer, and the problematic extension of the lessons learned in screening for cervical tumors to other malignancies. O exame citológico para verificação do câncer cervical (teste de Papanicolau), primeira tentativa de investigação em massa de um câncer humano maligno, é com frequência apresentado como demonstração não problemática da exequibilidade do exame. Ele se tornou um modelo para outros tumores malignos: seio, cólon, próstata. O presente artigo analisa a história inicial do teste de Papanicolau e as condições de sua transformação num exame de rotina, apesar de dificuldades de estabilizar as leituras das lâminas microscópicas. Analisa as consequências da difusão da técnica, as controvérsias a esse respeito, a modelagem articulada do teste diagnóstico e da doença câncer cervical e a problemática aplicação a outros cânceres das lições aprendidas com o exame de tumores cervicais.

International audience