Calculating Medical Uncertainties : Enactments of the HPV vaccine in Läkartidningen

In Science and Technology Studies (STS) it has been argued that medical knowledges and practices have been increasingly influenced by economic theories, methods and devices. This study takes this as a point of departure to investigate meetings between medicine and economics in the Swedish medical journal Läkartidningen. Utilizing ANT inspired theories it explores how the HPV vaccine is enacted relationally to sociotechnical arrangements of health economic devices and methods as well as to other health technologies such as the Pap smear and the HPV test. It is shown how problematizations of the Swedish cervical cancer screening programme in Läkartidningen allow for a space of calculability that performs the HPV vaccine and the Pap smear as possible to contrast, compare and coordinate through health economic calculations. It is also argued that uncertainties of how to balance individual and population vaccination protection create a space of calculability that enable calculations of gender and herd immunity.