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The Spectacular Generic

Pharmaceuticals and the Simipolitical in Mexico

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Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography

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Book

Pages: 256

Illustrations: 10 illustrations

Published: January 2023

Author: Cori Hayden

In The Spectacular Generic, Cori Hayden examines how generic drugs have transformed public health politics and everyday experiences of pharmaceutical consumption in Latin America. Focusing on the Mexican pharmacy chain Farmacias Similares and its proprietor, Víctor González Torres, Hayden shows how generics have become potent commodities in a postpatent world. In the early 2000s, González Torres, a.k.a. “Dr. Simi,” capitalized on the creation of new markets for generic medicines, selling cheaper copies of leading-brand drugs across Latin America. But Dr. Simi has not simply competed with the transnationals; his enterprise has also come to compete with the Mexican state, reorganizing the provision of medicine and basic health care for millions of people. Hayden juxtaposes this story with Dr. Simi’s less successful efforts in Argentina, where he confronted a radically different configuration of pharmaceutical politics. Building from these diverging trajectories, Hayden illuminates the politics of generic substitution as a question that goes beyond substituting one drug for another. Generic politics can radically reshape the relations among consumers, states, and pharmaceutical markets, even as they have yet to resolve the problems of cost and access.

Praise

“With innovative and sophisticated analysis and a rich comparative perspective, The Spectacular Generic is a remarkable contribution to the anthropology of pharmaceuticalization. Cori Hayden has opened up a unique field of inquiry into the multiplicity of generic medicines through which she powerfully interrogates transforming configurations of statecraft, medical capitalism, and patient-citizenry.” - João Biehl, author of Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival

“This stunning book starts by unraveling the knots of pharmaceutical difference then leads us to a new understanding of the commodity itself. Gorgeously written, it traces the connections between the materiality of drugs, commodity exuberance, and populist politics. After you read this book, drugs will never be the same.” - Michelle Murphy, author of The Economization of Life

“With exceptional clarity and theoretical sophistication, The Spectacular Generic dives into the complexities of generics while interweaving the convolutions of state and market. This book is a true model of how to do deep, complex anthropological work that scales history, geopolitics, governmentality, STS, pharmaceuticals, and health care. Truly a tour de force!” - Kristin Peterson, author of Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria

"Recommended, with reservations. Graduate students and faculty." - A. H. Koblitz, Choice

"This book is a gem, and most importantly, of interest well beyond medical anthropology. It contributes directly to political and economic debates across disciplines, and topically, it will be unexpectedly relevant to studies of populism and ethics, and more broadly, political economy, governance and the state. It is pitched at a level that will probably be best suited for advanced undergraduates onwards." - Juan Manuel del Nido, Bulletin of Latin American Research

"Ultimately, The Spectacular Generic asks us to recognize that 'generic' drugs do not stand apart from the systems of commerce, science, and politics that produce branded drugs. . . . by shifting the story from Big Pharma’s home stomping grounds of the United States and Europe, by incorporating the voices and experiences of ordinary drug takers, and through ingenious decoding of forbiddingly complex generic politics, she expands our understanding of generic drugs and what they reveal about the kinds of health care that can emerge under the utopian pretensions of the 'free market.'" - David Herzberg, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Cori Hayden is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of When Nature Goes Public: The Making and Unmaking of Bioprospecting in Mexico.

Table Of Contents

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Preface  vii
Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction: Rx for MX: Dr. Simi’s Mexican Revolution  1
1. Same and Not the Same  29
2. Simipolitics: State and Not the State  71
3. No Patent, No Generic  106
4. Access, Excess  144
5. Supergeneric vs. Mere Commodity  178
Coda  197
Notes  201
References  217
Index  237

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Sales/Territorial Rights: World

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Additional Information

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Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-1904-6 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-1640-3 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-2367-8 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478023678