How (Not) to Reform Biomedical Research: A Review of Some Policy Proposals

Abstract

In a recent article, Julian Reiss has identified some very important epistemic, moral and socio-economic failures in current biomedical research, and he argues that philosophers of science should reflect on how to (re)organize biomedical research in order to remedy these failures. In this chapter, several possible reforms of biomedical research are evaluated. I will reflect on how to tackle the epistemic failures by comparing the solution suggested by Julian Reiss to an alternative policy option. Most attention will, however, be paid to one of the moral failures: the fact that a disproportionately small part of the money devoted to health research goes to research into diseases that mainly affect third-world countries (the problem of neglected diseases). The most important advantages and disadvantages of some prominent proposals for a solution are disclosed – I will consider the proposals of Thomas Pogge, Joseph Stiglitz, Julian Reiss, and James Robert Brown – and I will also draw attention to an alternative policy proposal.