Poliomyelitis is a disease whose incidence steadily increased during the second half of the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic. If in the United States the epidemics which afflicted young children each summer became a major public health issue, in France, polio was considered less pressing than other diseases. This article, based on original archives from the Pasteur and Mérieux institutes, analyses the polio control strategies and policies implemented by France from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s. The article examines the role of two key actors and institutions that mobilised the French health authorities against the disease: Pierre Lépine and the Institut Pasteur as well as Charles Mérieux and the Institut Mérieux. Lépine developed an effective injected polio vaccine which was first used before being supplemented with the oral polio vaccine. If the two main protagonists and their institutions worked together, they each implemented different actions and manoeuvres, at different times with the aim to raise awareness of the fight against the disease. The national and international relations of the key French actors were decisive in the development and production of the polio vaccines and their application. This work contributes to understanding processes of polio vaccines choice at the level of national institutions and analyses the political and scientific networks built in support of polio vaccination, to finally move towards compulsory vaccination. Ultimately, this study describes the historical processes by which this disease became conflated with a biotechnology of collective protection in France.

Based on a wide range of historical sources, including published scientific literature and archives (Institut Mérieux, WHO and IMTSSA), this article examines the history of the development of the meningococcal A vaccine between 1969 and 1973. It explores the social factors of vaccine development including various collaborations, informal discussions, the circulation of products and materials, formal meetings, trials and setbacks to highlight the complex reality of the development, production and use of the vaccine. Inscribed in a ‘Golden Age’ of vaccine development and production, this episode not only adds to the scholarship on the history of vaccines, which has tended to focus on a narrative of progress, but also considers the sharing of knowledge through collaborations, and the risks involved in the development of a vaccine. Finally, this perspective reveals the uncertainties and difficulties underlying the production of an effective vaccine.