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Motivations for seeking experimental treatment in Japan

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posted on 2023-06-21, 06:02 authored by Masae Kato, Margaret Sleeboom-FaulknerMargaret Sleeboom-Faulkner
In this article on innovative medical treatment for serious conditions in Japan we aim to revise two widespread notions: first, that people living with severe conditions are all waiting for a cure or are impatient to try out experimental treatment, in particular regenerative medicine. Showing that motivations for cure seeking are complex and linked to somatic identity, we argue that gaining a cure also means a new social normality, which for some people narrows the only normality that is meaningful to them; and, second, that people living with a serious (latent) condition necessarily define their lives as not normal in the light of normalization. People with a condition conceptualise normal life variously and multiply in the light of both individual and collective experiences. The two revisions are crucial to attempts at understanding what makes people seek experimental medicine. Comparing the narratives of people with four different conditions – spinal cord injury, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Diabetes Mellitus type 1 and cardiovascular disease – it becomes clear that the difference between seeking treatment or not largely depends on somatic identities; rather than through notions of (ab)normality, it is more adequately understood in terms of the experience of somatic lacking and wholeness.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

BioSocieties

ISSN

1745-8552

Publisher

Palgrave

Issue

1

Volume

13

Page range

255-275

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-10-23

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-10-23

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-10-23

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