The Biopolitics and Bioethics of Health Pseudoscience

The Biopolitics and Bioethics of Health Pseudoscience explores how biopolitical structures and ideologies contribute to the production, promotion, and persistence of health-related pseudoscience.

In an era marked by the rise of identity-based politics, where pseudoscientific health claims are increasingly used as tools for political mobilization and cultural legitimacy, the book first unpicks the foundational concepts of biopolitics and pseudoscience, before examining key topics such as infodemics, the burgeoning role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in propagating health disinformation, quackademic medicine, and the role of biopolitics in Global Health Governance. It then illustrates the global reach of these issues through a range of fascinating case studies, from state-sponsored traditional medicine in China, India and Iran, to anti-vaccine rhetoric aligned with nationalist or religious extremists in the US. This articulate analysis then concludes with a practical, ethical framework for how to counter health misinformation and pseudoscience in the public sphere.

Topical and important, this will be essential reading for students, scholars and advocates working across Public Health, Political Science, the Medical Humanities and beyond.