ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the collection by reference to the reality that pharmaceuticals have become increasingly promoted as solutions to human health problems, health risks and the challenges of everyday life. Several contributions in this collection highlight the expected or experienced positive outcomes of using different types of medicines. Rosenlund Lau and colleagues examine the structural shaping of heart disease as a risk category and the moral obligation of citizens to act to minimise the risk of future cardiovascular disease. Alison Thompson argues that individual health behaviour can be understood in relation to the neoliberal emphasis on individual responsibility for health, and that the logical conclusion to the imperative of individual responsibility for health is resistance to collective action in favour of a singular focus on individual behaviours. Richard Cooper’s insights reinforce that, for individuals, accessing opioid analgesics is fraught with peril and possibilities, and that social- and political-level action in response to chronic pain-related suffering is required.
