Health & Society Program – Annual Lecture
Dr. Michael Bresalier, Department of History, Heritage and Classics, Swansea University/Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare (EPIC)
The post-colonial history of selective BCG vaccination in Britain: A case of epistemic injustice in healthcare?
“Selective” BCG vaccination policies for immigrant and ethnic minorities deemed at risk of tuberculosis have been widely adopted in high-income countries with low incidence of the disease. The practice has been recommended by the WHO as part of its response to the global resurgence of tuberculosis since the 1990s. But it has deeper and more troubled roots. Since the 1960s, Britain’s post-colonial history and its changing ethnic, cultural, and epidemiological make-up has framed vaccination policy through a network of factors, ranging from international public health agendas and the historic framing of TB as a racialized risk or an immigrant problem, to the shifting economic rationalities of BCG vaccination. But immigrant and ethnic minorities’ knowledge and experiences of tuberculosis and neonatal BCG vaccination have been largely absent from policy discussion. What are the implications of such lacunae? Examining the historical complexities of selective vaccination may offer insights into the relationship between epistemic injustice in healthcare and vaccine hesitancy.
