The "pharmakon" of prevention: artificial immunity in the covid-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The concept of pharmakon encapsulates the paradoxical ambivalence of any therapeutic intervention's harmful as well as beneficial effects; within the context of immunological practices related to covid-19, this ambivalence has been successfully exploited by anti-vaccination movements and is also evident in widespread vaccine hesitancy in wealthy countries where vaccines for this virus are widely available. Here we engage with the theoretical apparatus of the pharmakon to examine how care, harm, risk, and prevention are enacted in covid-19 prevention measures and mobilize the transdisciplinary methodologies of science and technology studies to investigate how anticipatory imaginaries drive cutting-edge research on covid-19 vaccines and the clinical and social practices they have elicited.