Donald Light is a medical and economic sociologist who does policy research on institutional and global bioethics concerning access and quality of medical services and drugs. Recent research analyzes the epidemic of harmful side effects from drugs (The Risks of Prescription Drugs [Columbia UP, 2010]); institutional barriers to more effective, safer drugs; and global vaccine policy. Light is a founding fellow of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2009-2011, he was the Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford University, and he is a professor of comparative health policy at the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine. From 2012-2014 he is a visiting fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Light received his BA from Stanford, his MA from the University of Chicago, and his PhD from Brandeis.
Selected Publications:
Light D. “Comparative Institutional Response to Economic Policy: Managed Competition and Governmentality,” Social Science and Medicine 2001;52(8):1151-66.
Light D, Hughes D. “A Sociological Perspective on Rationing: Power, Rhetoric and Situated Practices.” Sociology of Health and Illness 2001;23:551-69.
Light D, Castellblanch R, Arrendondo P, Socolar D. “No Exit and the Organization of Voice in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals,” Journal of Politics, Policy and Law 2003; 28: 473-507.
Light, DW. “Health care markets: theory and practice.” Pp. 6523-27 in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Baltes, eds. Elsevier 2004.
Light, DW. “Ironies of Success: A New History of the Current Health Care ‘System’.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 2004 45 (Extra Issue): 1-24.
Menzel, Paul and D W Light. “A conservative case for universal access to health care.” The Hastings Center Report July/Aug 2006: 3-11.
Outterson K, Light DW. “Global Pharmaceutical Markets.” Pp. 417-429 in Companion to Bioethics. 2nd Edition. Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer, eds. Blackwell, 2010.
