John Ruffin, former head of the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities wrote:
"The 19th-century scientist and pathologist Rudolph Virchow gave voice to many of our present-day concerns about disparities and went a long way toward defining the task before us. A socially minded man, he believed that science should speak the language of the common people and that medicine should serve the public's health. He wrote, 'If medicine is to fulfill her greatest task, then she must enter the political and social life…'"
Do you agree and why? Is it permissible for scientists to become advocates in the areas of their research? What steps can one take to balance advocacy with the objectivity that is considered the ideal in scientific inquiry?
The quote from Virchow is particularly interesting, I can't imagine an understanding of medicine that is not informed by political and social forces. I would argue that medicine never existed outside of political and social life. Maybe she was developed as a value-driven strategy to pathologize those without social and political power.
Resnik and Elliot encourage the individual to appraise the conscious and subconscious values that inform scientific work, except those of discipline epistemology. Bibbins-Domingo and Fernandez articulate that the FDA approval of BiDil for Black people reifies belief in a biological explanation of race. They go on to describe how this federal agency decision has the potential to influence future knowledge production and access to therapeutics through differential financial interests. It is not missed that the government intervention in question functions to the benefit of white supremacy. In this way, the approval of an unnecessarily expensive medication becomes a new tactic to profit off of the dehumanization of Black people. Scientists should be careful to understand the values that influence our methodology and structuring of knowledge. The scientist's work and the idea of objectivity already function as an advocate for a value-based agenda. Advocating for just and equitable values in scientific inquiry should be our ideal.