Fast belief: Buying time with medications

The experience of time famine in contemporary U.S. culture affects househol d decisions about self-care and the use of pharmaceuticals for self-medicat ion. This article examines the manner in which time demands shape lay inter pretations of medicine efficacy and drive increases in medication use for a dults as well as children. Medicines, like other time-saving commodities, a ppear to shift the time-power differential in favor of individuals, placing them in control of how time is spent. When there is "no time to be sick," allopathic medicines become time-saving devices that enable women to fulfil l responsibilities at work or home while they attend to sick children or to being ill themselves. Medicines are used to beat the clock by increasing o ne's own capacity to be productive.