英文摘要 |
In toxic tort litigation, epidemiology often plays a crucial role. Since its research conclusion influences interests of two parties, it becomes an area with fierce conflict. Focusing on the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) lawsuit in Taiwan, this article sees the nature of the conflict as a form of politics of knowledge, and intends to explore, blur and go beyond its boundary. It is found that epidemiology is put in an untoward position between corporations and victims in capitalist societies, and is easily manipulated to produce ’uncertainty’; as a result, it retreats from victims or leans to corporations for the worse. By ’meta-analyzing’ four epidemiological articles on RCA Taiwan, in which the causation between diseases found on workers and organic solvents used on the shop floor is studied, this article indicates a kind of routinized and conservative style in these studies, and suggests that bringing workers’ bodily experiences into research is beneficial in pursuit of both social and biological facts. It also suggests that a ’citizen-scientist alliance’ can help epidemiology challenging the power of corporations. In relation to knowledge, in such alliance epidemiology can be democratized along with the participation of lay people, based on which it will have the possibility to go beyond its social and intellectual limits. |