Do We Really Need Hepatitis B on the Second Day of Life?” Vaccination Mandates and Shifting Representations of Hepatitis B

Dados Bibliográficos

ID14984331
AutoresElena Conis (0000-0002-3189-4591, Emory University, autor correspondente)
Ano2011
Volume32
Fascículo2
Páginas155-166
Data de publicação2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Medical Humanities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1041-3545 • E-ISSN: 1573-3645
EditoraSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10912-010-9132-2
PMID21225327
PMCIDPMC3092064
OpenAlexW2008596709
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas2

In the decade following hepatitis B vaccine's 1981 approval, U.S. health officials issued evolving guidelines on who should receive the vaccine: first, gay men, injection drug users, and healthcare workers; later, hepatitis B-positive women's children; and later still, all newborns. States laws that mandated the vaccine for all children were quietly accepted in the 1990s; in the 2000s, however, popular anti-vaccine sentiment targeted the shot as an emblem of immunization policy excesses. Shifting attitudes toward the vaccine in this period were informed by hepatitis B's changing popular image, legible in textual and visual representations of the infection from the 1980s through the 1990s. Notably, the outbreak of AIDS, the advent of genetically engineered pharmaceuticals, and a Democratic push for health reform shaped and reshaped hepatitis B's public image. Hepatitis B thus became, in turn, an AIDS-like scourge; proof of a new era of pharmaceuticals; a threat from which all American children had a right to be protected; and a cancer-causing infection spread by teenage lifestyles. The metamorphosis of the infection's image was reflected in evolving policy recommendations regarding who should receive the vaccine in the 1980s, and was key to securing broad uptake of the vaccine in the 1990s

Emblem · Hepatitis B · Hepatitis B vaccine · Hepatitis B virus · Immunization · Vaccination · Hepatitis B Virus Studies · History · Medicine · Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy · Immunology · Virology