Politics of HIV Vaccine Research from International to Global Health

Authors

  • Piem David Université de Montréal

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica66120242637

Keywords:

HIV, Vaccine, Global health, World Health Organization, Aids, Research

Abstract

Paradoxically, the absence of HIV vaccine has been very structuring for global vaccine logics, and, more broadly, “global health” research. HIV vaccine research has oscillated between optimism and pessimism and has been central to the humanist justification for research in the South. From the attempt by the World Health Organization’s Vaccine Development Unit (VAD) on AIDS to become the centre of an “international” coordination effort to the diplomatic work involved with Thailand’s HIV research, I describe political contexts, and postcolonial power relations connected to HIV vaccine research. I argue that the failure of “international” coordination has paved the way for another politicization of global HIV vaccine research which led to a shift away from inter-state diplomacy to a “stateless” situation where the global vaccine logics contribute to the development of an experimental regime that relies on the capture of public resources and the availability of depoliticized biological subjects for the purposes of private valorization.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Brown, Phyllida. 1993. Controversial AIDS vaccine to be tested in China. The New Scientist, 29 May. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13818750-900-controversial-aids-vaccine-to-be-tested-in-china/.

Brown, Theodore M., Marcos Cueto, and Elizabeth Fee. 2006. “The World Health Organization and the Transition From ‘International’ to ‘Global’ Public Health.” American Journal of Public Health 96 (1): 62–72. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.050831.

Burton, Dennis R., Ronald C. Desrosiers, Robert W. Doms, Mark B. Feinberg, Robert C. Gallo, Beatrice Hahn, James A. Hoxie, et al. 2004. “A Sound Rationale Needed for Phase III HIV-1 Vaccine Trials.” Science 303 (5656): 316–316. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094620.

Cohen, Jon. 2009. “Unrevealed Analysis Weakens Claim of AIDS Vaccine.” Science Vol. 5, 5 October. https://www.science.org/content/article/unrevealed-analysis-weakens-claim-aids-vaccine-success.

——. 2001. Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for the AIDS Vaccine. New York: WW Norton and Co.

Crane, Johanna T. 2011. “Viral Cartographies: Mapping the Molecular Politics of Global HIV.” BioSocieties 6 (2): 142–166. https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2010.37.

Excler, Jean-Louis. 2003. “HIV Vaccine Development in Asia.” Journal of Health Management 5 (2): 327–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/097206340300500213.

Fordham, Graham. 2014. HIV/AIDS and the Social Consequences of Untamed Biomedicine: Anthropological Complicities. New York: Routledge.

Heyward, W. L., S. Osmanov, J. Saba, J. Esparza, E. Belsey, R. Stoneburner, J. Kaldor, and P.G. Smith. 1994. “Preparation for Phase III HIV Vaccine Efficacy Trials: Methods for the Determination of HIV Incidence.” AIDS (London, England) 8 (9): 1285–1291. https://doi.org/10.1097/00002030-199409000-00011.

Heyward, William L., Saladin Osmanov, and Jose Esparza. 1996. “Establishment of WHO-Sponsored Field Sites for HIV Vaccine Evaluation in Developing Countries.” Development and Applications of Vaccines and Gene Therapy in AIDS 48:139–144. https://doi.org/10.1159/000425169.

Kingori, Patricia, and Salla Sariola. 2015. “Museum of Failed HIV Research.” Anthropology and Medicine 22 (3): 213–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2015.1079302.

Klausner, Richard D., Anthony S. Fauci, Lawrence Corey, Gary J. Nabel, Helene Gayle, Seth Berkley, Barton F. Haynes, et al. 2003. “Enhanced: The Need for a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise.” Science 300 (5628): 2036–2039. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1086916.

Martin, Richard. n.d. “Testing the First AIDS Vaccine.” Wired, 1 January. https://www.wired.com/2003/01/aids/.

McNeil, John G., Margaret I. Johnston, Deborah L. Birx, and Edmund C. Tramont. 2004. “HIV Vaccine Trial Justified.” Science 303 (5660): 961–961. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1096161.

Meinert, Lotte, and Susan Reynolds Whyte. 2014. “Epidemic Projectification: AIDS Responses in Uganda as Event and Process.” The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 32 (1): 77–94. https://doi.org/10.3167/ca.2014.320107.

Moore, J., and R. Anderson. 1994. “The WHO and Why of HIV Vaccine Trials.” Nature 372 (6504): 313–314. https://doi.org/10.1038/372313a0.

Moulin, A.-M. 1996. L’aventure de la vaccination. Paris: Fayard.

Nguyen, V K. 2009. “Government-by-Exception: Enrolment and Experimentality in Mass HIV Treatment Programmes in Africa.” Social Theory and Health 7 (3): 196–217. https://doi.org/10.1057/sth.2009.12.

NIAID. 1994. “[Meeting Minutes, Meeting of the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council (1994: Bethesda, Maryland)].” http://name.umdl.umich.edu/5571095.0079.046.

Packard, Randall M. 2016. A History of Global Health: Interventions Into the Lives of Other Peoples. Baltimore: JHU Press.

Petryna, Adriana. 2009. When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rajan, Kaushik Sunder. 2017. Pharmocracy: Value, Politics, and Knowledge in Global Biomedicine. Durham: Duke University Press.

Rees, T. 2014. Humanity/plan; or, on the” stateless” today (also being an anthropology of global health). Cultural Anthropology, 29(3), 457-478. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca29.3.02.

Rerks-Ngarm S, Pitisuttithum P, Nitayaphan S, Kaewkungwal J, Chiu J, Paris R, Premsri N, Namwat C, de Souza M, Adams E, Benenson M, Gurunathan S, Tartaglia J, McNeil JG, Francis DP, Stablein D, Birx DL, Chunsuttiwat S, Khamboonruang C, Thongcharoen P, Robb ML, Michael NL, Kunasol P, Kim JH; MOPH-TAVEG Investigators. 2009. Vaccination with ALVAC and AIDSVAX to prevent HIV-1 infection in Thailand. New England Journal of Medicine, 361(23), 2209-2220. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0908492.

Rottenburg, Richard. 2009. “Social and Public Experiments and New Figurations of Science and Politics in Postcolonial Africa1.” Postcolonial Studies 12 (4): 423–440. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790903350666.

Thomas, Patricia. 2001. Big Shot Passion, Politics, and the Struggle for an AIDS Vaccine. New York: PublicAffairs.

WHO. 1992. “GPA Archive.” GPA 698.

——. 1994. “GPA Archive.” GPA 699.

——. 1995. “GPA Archive.” GPA 697.

Downloads

Published

2024-11-05

How to Cite

David, P. (2024). Politics of HIV Vaccine Research from International to Global Health. Anthropologica, 66(1). https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica66120242637

Issue

Section

Thematic Section: Global Vaccine Logics