Vaccine Anxieties: Global Science, Child Health and Society (The Earthscan Science in Society Series) - Softcover

Leach, Melissa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184407370X ISBN 13: 9781844073702

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

Across the globe, controversies around vaccines exemplify anxieties thrown up by new technologies. Whether it is growing parental concerns over the MMR vaccine in the UK or Nigerian communities refusing polio vaccines, associating them with genocidal policies , these controversies feed the cornerstone debates of our time concerning trust in government , media responsibility , scientific impartiality , citizen science , parental choice and government enforcement . This book is a groundbreaking examination of how parents are reflecting on and engaging with vaccination, a rapidly advancing and universally applied technology. It examines the anxieties emerging as today s highly globalized vaccine technologies and technocracies encounter the deeply intimate personal and social worlds of parenting and childcare, showing these to be part of transforming science society relations. The authors interweave rich ethnographic data from participant-observation, interviews, group discussions and parental narratives from the UK and West Africa with the findings of large-scale surveys, which reveal more general patterns. The book takes a comparative approach and draws perspectives from medical anthropology, science and technology studies and development studies into engagement with public health and vaccine policy. The authors show how vaccine controversies involve relations of knowledge, responsibility and interdependence across multiple scales that challenge easy dichotomies: tradition versus modernity, reason versus emotion, personal versus public, rich versus poor, and Northern risk society versus Southern developing society . They reflect critically on the stereotypes that at times pass for explanations of parents engagement with both routine vaccination and vaccine research, suggesting some routes to improved dialogue between health policy-makers, professionals and medical researchers, and the people they serve. More broadly, the book suggests new terms of debate for thinking about science society relations in a globalized world.

About this title

Review:

'One of the most insightful and compelling analyses of a modern public health paradox.' Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet 'A remarkable anthropological comparison across continents, this book is about common anxieties and different circumstances as they colour people's lives. The empirical studies at its core show us parents struggling with global science, with stereotypes about ignorance, with the delivery of medical services, all framed by their personal knowledge and experiences. Vaccination offers a brilliant case study for a brilliant exposition.' Marilyn Strathern, DBE, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge 'Is vaccination safe? Is resistance to MMR vaccine ignorant and wrong-headed? Leach and Fairhead offer provocative answers in this richly detailed account of how parents in the UK and West Africa cope with multiple anxieties in immunizing their children. This book should be compulsory reading for anyone concerned with global health and public policy.' Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 'In this book, Fairhead and Leach have continued productively to develop their earlier ground-breaking work thoroughly integrating the distinct fields of development studies anthropology, and science and technology studies. In this present work, not only have they opened up further dimensions of how diverse global publics encounter and respond to developments promoted in the name of science, they have also drawn attention to the political economy of the discursive construction of such publics, in biomedical research and vaccine innovation and policy.' Professor Brian Wynne, Associate Director, ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics, Lancaster University 'This should be mandatory reading for everyone who believes that new vaccines and better vaccine coverage are fundamental to improving the health of children throughout the world - for without a better understanding of how vaccines are perceived by the parents whose children are being targeted these efforts will continue to encounter needless frustrations.' Sarah Rowland-Jones, Scientific Director, Medical Research Council Laboratories, The Gambia 'Vaccine Anxieties is an exemplar of modern anthropological comparison.' Alison Shaw, Oxford University, UK 'Recommended' Choice

About the Author:

James Fairhead is Chair in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, UK. Melissa Leach is a social anthropologist and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. She leads the IDS research team on Knowledge, Technology and Society and is director of the Centre for Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS).

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 184407370X
• ISBN 13: 9781844073702
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216