Global Vaccine Logics: New Trends in an Old Assemblage

Abstract

A tension between two visions of innovation, one that builds capacity for horizontal public health systems, the other driving high tech vertical technology development, may be impeding global health. Vaccine research and immunization programs might be seen as a sociotechnical assemblage where the public health value of some vaccines is undeniable but their safety, effectiveness and vertical implementation remain wicked problems that divide and prevent progress. Industry demand for fast tracking vaccine development has increased as governments in high, middle and low countries contribute scarce public resources, often laundered to the private sector, to vaccine development and implementation. The confluence of market forces, financialization and weaponization of vaccines for biosecurity in the guise of global and public health has been demonstrated in pandemic threats from, for example, anthrax, dengue, ebola, HIV, influenza, malaria, meningitis to zika. Vaccine technologies and immunization programs continue to face controversy across sectors, propelled by charges of conflict of interest between Big Pharma, interested research science and states, and regulatory institutions. Causal relationships between immunization and serious adverse events, along with security concerns and mandatory vaccination introduce different forms of criticism and challenge than in the past. We invite STS researchers, especially applying ethnographic approaches, to analyse issues of particular and global vaccine innovation and development.

Individual Presentations

• Global Vaccine Logics: An Overview - Janice Graham, Dalhousie University

• From Global to Local: Motivations of Research Laboratories and Participants in the Senegal ACHIV-Ebola Clinical Trial - Elhadji Mamadou Mbaye, IRESSEF : Institut de Recherche en Santé,de Surveillance Epidemioloque et de Formations; Philomene Philomene, IRESSEF : Institut de Recherche en Santé,de Surveillance Epidemioloque et de Formations; Mbaye Moustapha, IRESSEF : Institut de Recherche en Santé,de Surveillance Epidemioloque et de Formations

• Motivations of People Infected with HIV to Participate in a Clinical Trial on an Ebola Vaccine Candidate in Canada - Pierre-Marie David, Université de Montréal; Benjamin Olivier Mathiot, Université de Montréal

• “It Wears an Ebola Coat but It’s Not Ebola; Its Intention Is to Kill, It’s Just Ebola Tunic”: Lay and Expert Discourses on rVSV-Zebov Ebola Vaccine in Guinea and Burkina Faso - Oumy Thiongane, University of Dalhousie

• Negotiating Knowledge through an Ecosystem of Vaccine Development and Deployment for (Re)Emergent Diseases - Shelley Lees, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Luisa Enria, University of Bath

Session Organizers

• Janice Graham, Dalhousie University

• Oumy Thiongane, University of Dalhousie