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1 results

  • Chapter 5 - The Rational World Paradigm, the Narrative Paradigm and the Politics of Pharmaceutical Interventions

  • Eivind Engebretsen, Universitetet i Oslo, Mona Baker, Universitetet i Oslo
  • Book:
    Rethinking Evidence in the Time of Pandemics
    Published online:
    15 September 2022
    Print publication:
    22 September 2022, pp 61-80
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  • Summary

    Chapter 5 examines some of the rationales for pharmaceutical interventions, especially vaccines, and resistance to them. Vaccine-hesitant and anti-vaccine activists have questioned different aspects of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, and some have even argued that the whole virus is a scam and part of a plot to profit from selling vaccines. The discussion regarding vaccines and other potential pharmaceutical treatments quickly became highly politicized, especially after Donald Trump’s official endorsement of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. The debate about vaccines and treatments does not only reflect tensions between science and politics and expert and non-expert discourses. It also highlights the fact that there are divergent views within the scientific community itself on when new evidence may be ready to be put into political action. This chapter explores the divergent arguments used in this debate as well as their various and complex value-laden underpinnings.