ABSTRACT
The role of patient associations, health movements, and other actors outside the medical profession and associated research community has changed dramatically during recent decades. To some degree, the changes are broad ones that affect science in general: as the technological complexity and industrial diversity of societies has increased, the scientifi c fi eld has become both more important politically and more politicized. Social movements and civil society organizations have been drawn into political confl icts about the regulation of both new and old technologies, and they have politicized issues of therapeutic choices and research agendas. At the same time, the relations between the scientifi c fi eld and industry have also changed because new professional specialties and new industries also seek to infl uence research agendas. The growth of industrial funding and the allure of revenues from patents have also provided scientists with the incentives to respond to industrial needs; however, some medical researchers have become aligned with health reform movements and patient advocacy organizations, and their involvement tends to enhance and politicize divisions within the scientifi c fi eld over research agendas.
