The politics of vaccination

<p>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. <br><br>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.<br><br>An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.</p>