The Politics of Vaccination: A Global History

by Christine Holmberg (Editor)

Mass vaccination campaigns are political projects that presume to protect individuals, communities, and societies. Like other pervasive expressions of state power - taxing, policing, conscripting - mass vaccination arouses anxiety in some people but sentiments of civic duty and shared solidarity in others. This collection of essays gives a comparative overview of vaccination at different times, in widely different places and under different types of political regime.

Core themes in the chapters include immunisation as an element of state formation; citizens' articulation of seeing (or not seeing) their needs incorporated into public health practice; allegations that donors of development aid have too much influence on third-world health policies; and an ideological shift that regards vaccines more as profitable commodities than as essential tools of public health.

360 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 28, 2017

About the author

Christine Holmberg is Professor of Social Medicine and Epidemiology at the Medical School Brandenburg Theodor Fontane. She was trained in anthropology at Humboldt University Berlin and Harvard Medical School, and in epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests include the influence of medical and statistical technologies on patient narratives, experiences, and decision making.

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative on the many challenges of global health and disease eradication programs, the costs of well meaning, top down vaccination programs. Not an easy read and I would have appreciated a more general knowledge sort of book on the subject.