Regulatory 'Desirables' for New Health Technologies

Abstract

New health technologies offer both challenges and opportunities. They promise hoped-for improvements in both individual and population health, reduced spending on health from public authorities, and economic development. But they can also come with risks, to both individual and population health and, more broadly, to the environment. Significant uncertainties about benefits and risks may arise as a result of the emergence of such technologies, as discourses of promise and hope interact with those grounded in suspicion and fear. Regulators may encounter political pressure, expert-citizen contestation, and stakeholder resistance, leading to problems with compliance. These dynamics and discourses represent important contexts which need to be taken into account when determining what is both necessary and desirable in the regulation of new health technologies. A research agenda for examining the role and functions of new health technologies should include an examination of regulatory hybridity, certainty and stability; whether a shift away from risk regulation as the default regulatory mechanism is warranted; and how best to enhance regulatory legitimacy.

Keywords: health, regulation, technology, emerging technologies