Research by ChoGlueck
Papers arranged by subject matter, with short descriptions below and links to download text.
Emergency Contraception & Values in Drug Labels
The FDA Ought to Change Plan B’s Label
Contraception 2022
[Full text here*] *Spanish translation available
This peer-reviewed commentary builds on my previous research, arguing that the FDA label about a post-fertilization possibility ought to be changed because of it is scientifically inadequate, misinformative, and able to be used to limit patents’ access to emergency contraception.
- Covered in the continuing medical education newsletter Contraceptive Technology Update with interview by Melinda Young (Relias Media)
- Follow-up story (after the FDA changed the label starting 2023!) in the continuing medical education newsletter Contraceptive Technology Update with interview by Melinda Young (Relias Media)
Imposing Values and Enforcing Gender through Knowledge:
Epistemic Oppression with the Morning-after Pill’s Drug Label
Hypatia 2022 [Email for Full Text]
This publication explores the harmful and unfair consequences of the US FDA’s outdated and misinformative labeling of LNG emergency contraceptive pills, arguing that the alleged “Drug Fact” that Plan B “may inhibit implantation” is laden with antiabortion values, which limits the agency of patients as knowers and reinforce oppression through paternalism and misogyny with provider refusals.
- Covered in podcast Reveal and aired on local NPR radio stations around the country with interview by Amy Mostafa (Mother Jones/UC Berkeley)
Drug Facts, Values, and the Morning-After Pill
This publication explores how values can be embedded in scientific facts, such as the US FDA drug label for the emergency contraceptive Plan B & the debates between advocates and antiabortionists over its alleged ability to effect fertilized embryos (zygotes).
- Covered by Bloomberg with interview by Riley Griffin
Broadening the Scope of Our Understanding of Mechanisms: Lessons from the History
of the Morning-After Pill
Synthese 2019
This publication uses the history of debates over the controversial morning-after pill (emergency contraception) to gain insight into the deeper reasons for the production and use of mechanistic knowledge (“how a drug works”) throughout biomedical research, clinical practice, and governmental regulation.
- Covered by CNN, Scientific American, and elsewhere with interview by Sarah Varney (Kaiser Health News)
Male Contraception & Gender Bias in Drug Trials
Still No Pill for Men?
Double Standards & Demarcating Values in Biomedical Research
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 2022 [Full Text here]
This publication evaluates the methodology of clinical trials for contraception for people who produce sperm, arguing that double standards are an example of illegitimate values in science that ought to be “undoubled” on the grounds of gender equity.
- Selected by the Editors of Studies in HPS for Elsevier’s Special Issue for International Women’s Day 2022, highlighting “critical and exciting new research relating to gender equality”.
Values, Evidence, Methodology, & Ethics
Values as heuristics:
a contextual empiricist account of assessing values scientifically
Synthese 2023
with Elisabeth Lloyd [Open Access]
This paper argues that, contrary to the view of feminist radical empiricists, values
should not be understood as empirical evidence to be directly assessed by individuals.
Instead, values in science are better understood as heuristic tools for building models
whose use in specific domains can be validated or invalidated by communities based
on their empirical fruitfulness.
On the pursuitworthiness of qualitative methods in empirical philosophy of science
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 2023
with Nora Hangel [email for full text]
This publication advocates for using social-science methods like open-ended interviews and ethnography in philosophy to inform our understanding of how science works, especially the social norms of science and interpersonal processes of reasoning.
Race and Gender
in Research
The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Bioethics 2022
with Elisabeth Lloyd [Full text here]
This chapter discusses how sexist and racist values like androcentrism and white supremacy have negatively influenced cognitive differences research and reproductive health science, as well as the potential for making scientific culture more equitable.
The Error Is in the Gap:
Synthesizing Accounts for Societal Values in Science
This paper examines the different ways that philosophers have argued that ethical value judgments undermine value-freedom in science. I contend that we can better understand the error argument as nested within the gap because the error is a limited case of the gap with narrower features. Furthermore, this nestedness provides philosophers with conceptual tools for analyzing more robustly how values pervade science.
Pesticides, Neurodevelopmental Disagreement, and
Bradford Hill’s Guidelines
Accountability in Research 2017
with Kristin Shrader-Frechette [Full Text here]
This paper analyzes some of the methodological problems stemming from conflicts of interest (COIs) in industry-funded research, criticizing debatable studies on organophosphates funded by pesticide manufacturers.