The Drug Company Next Door: Pollution, Jobs, and Community Health in Puerto Rico

"This fascinating and most timely critical
medical anthropology study successfully binds two still emergent areas of
contemporary anthropological research in the global world: the nature and
significant impact of multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers on human
social life everywhere, and the contribution of corporations to the fast-paced
degradation of our life support system, planet Earth. . . . Focusing on a
pharmaceutically-impacted town on the colonized island of Puerto Rico, Dietrich
ably demonstrates the value of ethnography carried out in small places in
framing the large issues facing humanity."

—Merrill Singer, University of Connecticut


The production of pharmaceuticals is among the
most profitable industries on the planet. Drug companies produce chemical
substances that can save, extend, or substantially improve the quality of human
life.However, even as the companies
present themselves publicly as health and environmental stewards, their
factories are a significant source of air and water pollution--toxic to people
and the environment. In Puerto Rico, the pharmaceutical industry is the
backbone of the island’s economy: in one small town alone, there are over a
dozen drug factories representing five multinationals, the highest
concentration per capita of such factories in the world. It is a place where
the enforcement of environmental regulations and the public trust they ensure
are often violated in the name of economic development.


The Drug Company Next Door unites the concerns of
critical medical anthropology with those of political ecology, investigating
the multi-faceted role of pharmaceutical corporations as polluters, economic
providers, and social actors. Rather
than simply demonizing the drug companies, the volume explores the dynamics
involved in their interactions with the local community and discusses the
strategies used by both individuals and community groups to deal with the consequences
of pollution.


The Drug Company Next Door puts a human face on a
growing set of problems for communities around the world. Accessible and engaging, the book encourages
readers to think critically about the role of corporations in everyday life,
health, and culture.