Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Immunitary bioeconomy
T2 - the economisation of life in the international cord blood market
AU - Brown, Nik
AU - Machin, Laura
AU - McLeod, Danae
N1 - Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/4
Y1 - 2011/4
N2 - This paper examines an emerging bioeconomy centred on the international banking and trade in cord blood. Since the late 1980s cord blood has been used in an expanding range of treatments and as an alternative to the use of bone marrow stem cells. This is particularly the case in treating ethnic minority populations who have historically been under-represented in bone marrow registries. The paper explores the mobilisation and commercialisation of an increasingly important bioeconomic resource with cord blood units trading internationally at high prices. This is a market mediated through a sophisticated global network of immunologically typed and matched bodily matter in which immunity has become a form of 'corporeal currency'. Based on recent international figures we reflect upon the balance of trade between imports and exports across the world's cord blood bioeconomy. Theoretically, this case is, we suggest, an extension of what Roberto Esposito (2008) has termed an 'immunitary paradigm' in which immunity has become the basis for new forms of bioeconomic flow, circulation and exchange. Esposito (2008). Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
AB - This paper examines an emerging bioeconomy centred on the international banking and trade in cord blood. Since the late 1980s cord blood has been used in an expanding range of treatments and as an alternative to the use of bone marrow stem cells. This is particularly the case in treating ethnic minority populations who have historically been under-represented in bone marrow registries. The paper explores the mobilisation and commercialisation of an increasingly important bioeconomic resource with cord blood units trading internationally at high prices. This is a market mediated through a sophisticated global network of immunologically typed and matched bodily matter in which immunity has become a form of 'corporeal currency'. Based on recent international figures we reflect upon the balance of trade between imports and exports across the world's cord blood bioeconomy. Theoretically, this case is, we suggest, an extension of what Roberto Esposito (2008) has termed an 'immunitary paradigm' in which immunity has become the basis for new forms of bioeconomic flow, circulation and exchange. Esposito (2008). Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
KW - Biological Specimen Banks
KW - Commerce
KW - Costs and Cost Analysis
KW - Fetal Blood
KW - Humans
KW - Internationality
KW - Politics
KW - Registries
KW - Sociology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79953742935&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.01.024
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.01.024
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 21398003
VL - 72
SP - 1115
EP - 1122
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
SN - 1873-5347
IS - 7
ER -