The Politics of Vaccination. A Global History by Christine Holmberg, Stuart Blume, and Paul Greenough, eds

Abstract

Health & History ● 19/2 ● 2017 169 Inquiry’s findings is included in an appendix. The book’s photographs and diagrams (some of which explain CIS progression) provide additional context. As the first comprehensive account of the Cartwright Inquiry written by a ‘whistle-blower’ NWH doctor, Doctors in Denial fills an important gap in the historiography of this subject, enriching the existing literature and, importantly, helping to counter-balance recent attempts at academic revisionist history. JANE ADAMS UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO Christine Holmberg, Stuart Blume, and Paul Greenough, eds, The Politics of Vaccination. A Global History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017). ISBN: 978-1-5261-1088-6 (HB). 343pp. Like the diseases it seeks to control, vaccination is a global phenomenon. If exposure to infectious diseases is the common lot of humanity, now the experience of vaccination also creates a homogenising bond. Vaccination is also a political act. It is often one of the few publicly supported forms of medical intervention and is often compulsory or nearly compulsory. It is a rite of passage for a citizen with a perceived public as well as private benefit. This global history of the politics of vaccination offers, through eleven case studies, rich insight on the world’s experience of vaccination, especially the complex relationship between medicine and the state. The case studies are grouped loosely under three headings: ‘Vaccination and National Identity’; ‘Nationality and Vaccine Production’; and ‘Vaccination, the Individual and Society’. A great strength of the book, though, is that all the studies address more than one theme. The case studies have geographical range, with studies on Bangladesh (Paul Greenough), Brazil (Jaime Benchimol), Eastern Europe (Dora Vargha), India (Niels Brimnes), Japan (Julia Yongue), Mexico (Ana María Carrillo), the Netherlands (Stuart Blume), Nigeria (Elisha Renne), South Korea (Eun Kyung Choi and YoungGyung Paik), Sweden (Britta Lundgren and Martin Holmberg), and the United Kingdom (Andrea Stöckl andAnna Smajdor). While a few of the studies begin in the late nineteenth century, all are primarily concerned with developments in the twentieth century, and many 170 BOOK REVIEWS of them include recent events and trends, not least the ‘Afterword’ (William Muraskin). The link between vaccination and state-building is explored, directly or indirectly, in all the studies. The connection was well established in Europe. Sweden mandated compulsory smallpox vaccination as early as 1816. Vargha’s study shows its new ideological resonance in Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War—the polio threat in the late 1950s raised the stakes dramatically not only in relation to the ‘health of the population and epidemic control, but also the strength and capability of the new communist system’(p.91). Smallpox vaccination in Mexico and Brazil began in colonial times, but its early success owed a great deal to colonial agency. From the late nineteenth century, the two countries set some store by vaccination and took some pride in contributing to the science and technology of this medical advancement. In post-Independence East Bengal there was a high degree of mobilisation in a campaign to suppress smallpox and cholera outbreaks that was informed by a resolve to show the British, Pakistan, and international administrations independent agency. Brazil played a leading role in seeking a vaccine for yellow fever; showed its capacity for heroic vaccination in 1975, immunising ten million people against hepatitis in five days; and received an award for eradicating wild poliovirus in 1994. In Japan and South Korea, too, vaccination played critical roles in forging a modern nation. After the ‘opening up’ of Japan in the late nineteenth century, the Japanese took up smallpox vaccination with alacrity and rapidly developed impressive expertise in the relevant sciences and technology. On the other hand, it showed caution in evaluating and accepting other vaccines. For South Korea, too, vaccination was part of an imaginary of progress, ultimately privileging the health of the future generation. If vaccination was to play its part in protecting the national body politic, there was the problem of vaccine supply. The larger European states,ofcourse,soughtadegreeofautonomyinproducingthevaccine they needed. In the wake of the Pasteur-Koch revolution, there was a wave of interest in new vaccine possibilities and European-style institutes were established around the world. In Brazil...