ABSTRACT
I argue that there is an elective affinity between the use of pharmaceuticals as a therapeutic approach, capitalism and the medical profession. States have a more ambivalent relationship with pharmaceuticals and their manufacturers. State concerns over safety have ultimately installed the randomised controlled trial as the primary form of legitimating therapies. Findings from these trials form the basis of recommendations for the prescribing of medical professionals, governing their therapeutic choices. Population health perspectives increasingly compel people to consume pharmaceuticals. Increasing levels of access to pharmaceuticals is provided through communication technologies. Pharmaceuticals permeate domestic spaces and change relationships within families and between intimates. The dominance of pharmaceuticals inveigles us all into forms of pharmaceuticalised governance and operates at different levels: individual and every day, institutional, state and globally.
