Technology, Agency and Experimentation: Animals and Vaccines

Animals are closely intertwined with the history and contemporary application of vaccination. The growing global attention towards zoonoses, increasing institutionalisation of One Health principles in public health and the social scientific attentiveness to non-human animals following the ‘animal turn’ make this an opportune moment to examine the deep social relationship between animals and vaccines. This chapter grapples with four areas of this relationship: the role of animals in the history of vaccine development, the professionalisation of veterinary medicine, the use and critique of vaccination as a ‘One Health’ intervention and finally the collision of societal opinion and scientific practice in animal research. Through these areas of focus we illustrate that animals have not been passive participants in the history or application of vaccination, repeatedly challenging and changing the technical and societal playing field for vaccination interventions and posing new ethical questions in an increasingly interconnected and environmentally-challenged world.