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Posted Tue, 27 May 2003 14:04:02
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From: Carsten Timmermann <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Conference: Drugs Trajectories II: Producing Sex Hormones, 
Controlling Reproduction; Strasbourg, June 13-14

DRUGS TRAJECTORIES II:
PRODUCING SEX HORMONES, CONTROLLING REPRODUCTION.

International workshop

Organized by Christian Bonah, Université Louis Pasteur
(Email [log in to unmask] )
and Jean-Paul Gaudillière, CERMES
(Email [log in to unmask] )

Strasbourg, June 13-14th, 2003.

(1) INTRODUCTION

The history of drugs is far from being an uncharted territory in the history of
science and medicine. A vast corpus of literature including histories of firms,
biographies of great pharmacists, legal studies of drug regulation, as well as
economic surveys have expanded in the past two decades. This literature has
provided a vast corpus of information both on the industrialization of drug
making, and on the use of chemical knowledge in order to synthesize molecules
with interesting therapeutic properties. Our understanding of "drug as
  chemicals" however means that other important aspects in the history of drugs
have been less discussed. These include the part played by the pharmaceutical
industry in the development of clinical research, the paths followed in 
order to
advance and use the biological sciences, as well as the impact of
commercialization on the production of pharmaceutical knowledge.

Drugs are medical tools used for the management of diseases. They are at the
same time industrial products, commercial goods, and research objects. One may
describe this plurality by speaking of "boundary objects" circulating between
heterogeneous worlds of practices. A convenient way to grasp this multifaceted
nature of drugs is to concentrate on the history of specific compounds, thus
cutting through the various drug-making worlds, combining the commercial, the
medical, the legal, and the experimental.

Drug trajectories workshops gather papers concentrating on the history of one
peculiar drug, or on set of related products. Rather than addressing the 
history
of a company, a discipline, or a discovery, the aim of this workshop is to
advance our understanding of the pharmaceutical seamless web, i.e. the complex
links between biologists, medical practitioners, pharmacists, and drug
manufacturers. Emphasis is placed on two related dimensions.

Industrially synthesized chemical compounds are latecomers in the history of
pharmacy. For a long time, a majority of drugs have been derivatives of
biological material. For instance, the early industrialization of drug making
was associated with the preparation of materia medica based on the collection
and growing of plants. Turning pharmaceutical preparations into industrial 
goods
thus implied the mechanization of drying, cutting, filtering, or transporting
extracts. Moreover, critical categories of contemporary drugs including sera,
vitamins, hormones or antibiotics originate in the preparation and purification
of biological material. The workshop will contribute to a better understanding
of the longue durée of biotechnology by focusing on the development of these
"biologicals".

The historiography of the life and medical sciences has recently benefited from
renewed interests in the technological dimensions of medicine. The impact of
peculiar instruments and techniques, often mass-produced, on the development of
medical knowledge has been recognized as an important topic. This move has
however barely changed the "push" and "pull" model often used to evaluate
industrial innovation, especially when it comes to products of mass 
consumption.
A second aim of the workshop is therefore to gather papers addressing the 
impact
of industrial practices, including production as well as patenting or 
marketing,
on the definition of what we know about drugs and how we use them.

'Producing sex hormones, controlling reproduction' is the second workshop in a
series launched last year in Berlin. It will concentrate on the trajectories of
sex hormones, with a peculiar emphasis on sex steroids. Sex hormones are
biologicals par excellence. Their history can be traced back to organotherapy.
The preparation, sales and uses of extracts obtained from the sexual glands is
one among these early "biotechnological" form of drug making which developed at
the boundary between medicine, pharmacy, and the food industry. Uses were found
in the treatment of specific reproductive ailments but as well in attempts at
rejuvenation. Sex steroids emerged as chemically characterized products in the
1930s. Enlarged production and increased purity associated with their
industrialization critically changed their uses. Their fate was linked a means
to as well as a product of the expansion of reproductive medicine. It was also
an element in the transformation of pharmaceutical industrial research into a
biomedical enterprise. The aim of the workshop will be to keep track and 
analyze
these connections, keeping a balance between the biological, the technical, and
the medical dimensions.

An important historiography has already addressed issues like the discovery of
sex steroids, the development of the pill, or aspects of hormonal therapy in
gynecology. Building on this literature, the conference will assemble papers
focusing on new issues, including: a) the development of forms of
chemo-therapeutic control of male reproductive medicine including the treatment
of sterility as well as the lack of potency ; b) the use of sex hormones as
means of medical prevention in parallel to the care of existing ailments (the
rise of hormonal replacement therapies); c) the diversity of paths followed by
reproductive medicine in various countries, and their relationship to the local
pharmaceutical configuration ; d) the development of industrial research in sex
steroid chemistry, biochemistry, and physiology ; e) the articulation of these
in-house activities with the physician's practice and their vision of 
legitimate
use ; f) the tensions between lay and professional uses of these drugs ; g) the
development, appropriation, and medical utilization of other sex hormones than
the sex steroids ; h) the introduction of mass-produced steroids in 
agricultural
practice and veterinary medicine.
(Jean-Paul Gaudillière)


(2) PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

I. Welcome and Introduction.

1. « A life working with sex-hormones »
Claude Aron, Emeritus professor of histology at the medical Faculty Strasbourg.

2. "Introductory comment"
Viviane Quircke (London)

II. From the laboratory to the « invisible industrialist ».

1.- « Bouin's laboratory and the invention of sex steroids »
Christian Bonah (IRIST/MISHA Strasbourg)

2. « Schering, Bayer and the industrialization of German reproductive 
medicine »
Jean-Paul Gaudilliere (Cermes, Paris)

3.  « Industrial development of steroid »
Vivien Walsh (Manchester, Cermes)

Commentary : Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (MPIWG Berlin).

III. Sex hormones, gynecology and the promotion of reproduction.

1.  « The treatment of female sterility in NS Germany. »
Martina Schluender (Berlin)

2.  « The sterile male in NS Germany »
Florence Vienne (Berlin)

3. « Pituitary hormones and reproductive medicine »
Naomi Pfeffer (London)

4. « A difficult liberalization : oral contraception in France »
Sophie Chauveau (Lyon)

Commentary : George Weisz (Montreal)

IV. Sex hormones and the enhancement of the body.

1. « Cancer, surgery and hormonal therapy: the case of the ovaries »
  Ornella Moscucci (London)

2. « Gynecology and the uses of progesterone in postwar France »
Ilana Löwy (Cermes, Paris)

3. « Hormone replacement therapy of menopause (contemporary debates) »
Christelle Salles (Paris)

4. « Anabolic steroid and biotechnology enhanced athletes »
Adam Russell (St Andrews, UK)

Commentary : Carsten Timmermann (Manchester)

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