Global Vaccine Logics: An Overview

• In Event: Global Vaccine Logics: New Trends in an Old Assemblage

Abstract

The research and development (R&D) of new vaccines is caught in and driven by global actors who include science, clinics, market fundamentalism, financialization, health and biosecurity threats, economic and ecosystem failures. It is possible that these characters may not so much be seen and analysed as a global assemblage as actors in search of an author. Often it seems that research participants and clinical trial staff are forgotten. This paper will present a snapshot of ethnographic case studies that explore the R&D of four vaccines developed in the 21st century that challenge the taken for granted regulatory assumptions of safety, efficacy and quality, as well as research participation. Patterns in these vaccines’ particular and collective innovation, interruption and regeneration will be unpacked to offer an understanding of global vaccine logics in post-industrial, post-truth, real-world research enterprise.

Author

• Janice Graham, Dalhousie University