Abstract

The article analyses the public policy of vaccination against the human papilloma virus according to the three classical criteria of need, efficacy and safety as an exemplary case of how the big transnational corporations operate and how the governments serve their interests. It discusses the changes in policy in Japan and the recent developments in France and the grass-roots movements in Spain that are organizing to change this policy. The four Lacanian discourses are applied to the analysis of the rhetoric of public health authorities.