Abstract
This chapter explores how direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising in Sweden for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil (advertised as a vaccine for young girls for the prevention of cervical cancer) addresses parents and articulates gendered parental care relationships. Vaccination practice invokes a tension between the collective good and individual choice, and encourages parents to exercise good consumer choices for their children (Rose and Blume 2003; Fairhead and Leach 2007). The trope of parents-as-consumers can present the management of health risks as an individual responsibility rather than a matter of population health (Reich 2014). Vaccination practices can be read as an example of a pharmaceuticalization of life, which transforms the relations between, in this case, parents, daughters, health professionals and pharmaceutical companies, and creates new relations of caring which require the involvement of pharmaceuticals as essential participants (even when actively resisted by potential recipients) in the relationship (cf. Williams et al. 2009, 2011).
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Notes
- 1.
Gardasil is used to prevent two strains of HPV which are estimated to cause 70% of cervical cancer cases per year, as well as two strains that are estimated to cause 90% of genital wart cases per year. More than 100 different types of HPV exist, whereof 14 types can cause cervical cancer, cytological abnormalities and precancerous lesions. HPV is transmitted through genital skin-to-skin contact. Both men and women transmit HPV (Medical Products Agency 2015b).
- 2.
In 2013 Australia decided to implement a vaccination scheme for both boys and girls, and in 2014, Austria did the same. For a discussion of the gender-neutral discourse currently articulated in Austria, see Lindén and Busse (Chap. 9, this volume).
- 3.
At this time, subsidized pharmaceuticals in Sweden meant that the patient did not have to pay more than 1800 Swedish kronor (SEK) (US$218) for prescription pharmaceuticals within a calendar year. Since January 2012, the maximum sum is 2200 SEK (US$266) (Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency 2015).
- 4.
All translations are the author’s.
- 5.
- 6.
Falun red is a typically Swedish color often found in the Swedish countryside.
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Lindén, L. (2017). You Will Protect Your Daughter, Right?. In: Johnson, E. (eds) Gendering Drugs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51487-1_6
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