Graduation Year
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Granting Department
English
Major Professor
Carl Herndl, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Julie Staggers, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Ambar Basu, Ph.D.
Keywords
pharmaceuticals, risk communication, technical communication
Abstract
The Walter Reed Institute of Army Research developed the antimalarial drug mefloquine then collaborated with Hoffman-La Roche to produce the drug under its brand name "Lariam," after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved licensure in 1989. For over twenty years, the Army used this pill as its "drug of choice" for soldiers deployed to endemic regions until 2009, and in 2013 the Food and Drug Administration warned that the drug's neurotoxic effects could be lasting, if not permanent. The sociopolitical exigence of developing a new biochemical antimalarial drug rushed the development and licensure processes, and the modern craving for certainty in the New Drug Application (NDA) process led to a biomedical disaster-- economically, politically, and interpersonally. In this paper, I present the factors contributing to uncertainty and heightened exigence in the development of what I call "mef-Lariam" in a nod to Latourian hybridization. By tracing the history of the drug's development process, I argue that definitional stasis around the NDA genre's terms safe and effective undergird a dangerous ontological orientation to medicine that privileges an ethic of expediency. Finally, I argue that actor-network theory can help medical rhetors apply a more ethical, multiple view of medical research that could prevent the future licensure of toxic pharmaceuticals.
Scholar Commons Citation
Gerdes, Julie Marie, "Risk of Compliance: Tracing Safety and Efficacy in Mef-Lariam's Licensure" (2014). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/5222
