The Cost of Trust: The World Health Organization and Vaccination's Contested Economization in France
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- handle: 10670/1.415fy4
- hal: hal-03700735
- doi: 10.1177/00220094211057833
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Gaëtan Thomas, « The Cost of Trust: The World Health Organization and Vaccination's Contested Economization in France », HAL-SHS : histoire, philosophie et sociologie des sciences et des techniques, ID : 10.1177/00220094211057833
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This article explores the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) within the tumultuous history of the hepatitis B vaccine in France, including a controversy that erupted in 1996 and lasted several years. When the first hepatitis B vaccine was commercialized in France in 1981, it inaugurated a new era in the industry characterized by high prices, an unprecedented number of patents and aggressive commercial competition. By inscribing the hepatitis B vaccine controversy into a broader, global history of the economization of immunization – in which the WHO played a central role – this article reframes the causes and implications of a controversy that both actors and scholars have approached through a primarily national lens. The challenge posed to the economic approach to immunization prepared the ground for subsequent critiques of vaccines as commodities. The article discusses a key transformation in the recent transatlantic history of public health by focusing on the perceived association of immunization with a contested economic order.