Anticipate the Vaccine That Did Not Exist

• In Event: Vaccine Histories and their Politics of Anticipation

Abstract

The HIV vaccine has a long history by default: it has never existed but has been the subject of much research for more than 30 years. The stories of this research have often been told as failures, as dead ends, in short, as remains of a research without effects. But many researchers as well as their institutions thought they were close, very close to discovering it, bringing with them research and demonstration devices that clearly reveal the anticipation policies that were linked to vaccine development. Today, expectations related to the HIV vaccine are global as analyzed by T. Rees, part of a global biological humanity plan. The story told in this presentation reflects on a particular story of this vaccine that did not exist, and the postcolonial expectations that accompanied and shaped it during a research conducted in the Central African Republic between 1989 and 1996. Baptized under the code name: "Operation Bangui", a research was conducted on a cohort of Central African soldiers to test a promising vaccine candidate developed in Paris. Thousands of soldiers have been included for research on AIDS in a tense political context between France and the CAR. This history makes it possible to wonder about a postcolonial scientific and political order and its anticipations, about what remains of this past in the present Central African Republic and that of French research. More generally, this story invites reflection on how socio-political contexts shape and materialize scientific promises.

Author

• Pierre-Marie David, Université de Montréal