PATIENT-CITIZEN-CONSUMERS: JUDICIALIZATION OF HEALTH AND METAMORPHOSIS OF BIOPOLITICS

• Autor(a) principal: Biehl,João
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Lua nova (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-64452016000200077
• topic: Judicialization of Health; Pharmaceuticalization; Critical Global Health; Biopolitics from Below; Patient-Citizen-Consumers; State Accountability; Workable Infrastructures

Abstract Situated at the meeting points of Law and Medicine, the "judicialization of the right to health" is a contested and hotly debated phenomenon in Brazil. While government officials and some scholars argue that it is driven by urban elites and private interests, and used primarily to access high-cost drugs, empirical evidence refute narratives depicting judicialization as a harbinger of inequity and an antagonist of the public health system. This article's quantitative and ethnographic analysis suggests, instead, that low- -income people are working through the available legal mechanisms to claim access to medical technologies and care, turning the Judiciary into a critical site of biopolitics from below. These patient-citizen-consumers are no longer waiting for medical technologies to trickle down, and judicialization has become a key instrument to hold the State accountable for workable infrastructures.