University hospital as a place of realization of corporative biopolitics. Case of testing programs of vaccination

Abstract

The article focuses on the phenomenon of presence of the corporations involved in producing medicine within public clinics. The theoretical side of the text is based on the works of M. Foucault (mainly concerning reform of the hospitals and the emergence of the modern clinic) and Z. Bauman comments on the collapse of the welfare state ideas. The second part of the text is based on interviews conducted with the participant of vaccine testing program, and with the doctor, who was leading his case. In both cases, the key issue was to show biographical threads, which led to the meeting of the patient with the doctor in this particular situation. Putting together comments from theoretician and the results of the field research shows that modern state, which is under crisis, resigns in certain areas from its biopolitical activities. These places are taken over by global corporations, which use the structure of state/public institutions to implement their own purposes: corporative biopolitics, for example medicine testing programs carried out on a massive scale.