Séparer l’aliment du médicament

• Main Authors: Solenne Carof, Étienne Nouguez
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Éditions de la Sorbonne 2021-06-01
• Series: Socio-anthropologie
• Subjects: pharmaceuticalisation; drug; food; boundary; European regulation; claim
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/socio-anthropologie/8529

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Europe has seen an increase in the number of boundary products that explicitly place themselves between the drug whose "health benefits" they claim and the food to which they are legally bound. Should we then see the development of these products as a sign of the pharmaceuticalization of food? By analyzing the implementation of the 2006 European regulation on nutrition and health claims, we show that the European regulatory authorities have engaged in a real boundary work to separate foodstuffs from drugs; by distinguishing health promotion and risk prevention from disease cure; health benefits from risks; and evidence-based medicine from promise-based marketing. Although the reference to the pharmaceutical realm remains important, this regulation has rather sought to build an original framework for thinking about the contribution of food to public health.