Professor Judy Segal (UBC English) will give an STS Colloquium Talk on Thursday, October 30 at 4 PM in Buchanan Tower Room 1197. Segal’s talk is titled “FDA, FSD, DSM, and STS.”
Abstract
On October 27 and 28–that is, just before the colloquium–I will be attending, as an observer, meetings in Maryland of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The meetings are titled, “Patient-Focused Drug Development and Scientific Workshop on Female Sexual Dysfunction” (bold added). At the colloquium, I will report on the meetings, and speak, more generally, about how patient narratives and drug-lobby appeals–and patient narratives sponsored by drug lobbies–have participated in the medicalization of sexual problems in women. I have lined up some video/film that will introduce problems associated with FSD as a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 names FSIAD–Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder–as the most common form of FSD). But I expect that the most interesting things I will have to offer on the day are things I don’t know yet–because they will come from the FDA meetings themselves. I hope to engage students and other colloquium attendees in questions of what it means to study a medical/psychiatric diagnosis from an STS perspective–and, in particular, from a Science and Technology Studies perspective. In addition, there may be something to say about the relations of analysis, activism, and advocacy.
