Virdi, Jaipreet (2009) Bridging the Knowledge Gap: Examining Potential Limits in Nanomedicine. Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science, 2 (1). ISSN 1913-0465
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Abstract
Nanomedicine has the potential to transform medical therapy and diagnosis. Its technologies predict improved drug delivery systems with site-specific treatment, precise new surgical techniques that would reduce patient trauma and treatment cause, and even cellular repair that would make age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease a thing of the past. Currently, nanomedicine products are reaching the world market with an annual growth rate of twenty-five percent. However, like any emerging new technology, along with doomsday scenarios of nanoparticles gone amuck, nanomedicine raises serious ethical, moral, and social issues that may potentially limit its technological developments. In this essay, I briefly evaluate some of these issues, and argue that ethical and epistemic issues should be considered prior to research and development. By examining three crucial epistemic challenges in nanomedicine—toxicity, nanodrugs and drug delivery systems, and clinical trials—I argue that by implementing a multi-criterion decision analysis (MCDA) framework as outlined by Linkov, Satterstorm and Corey (2008), these challenges can bridge the knowledge gap between R&D and the introduction of nanomedicine technologies into the market.
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