This mobilization is rightly celebrated as a collective triumph of the human spirit, but it was always also crosscut with competition, rivalry, and the battle for exclusive property rights. Vaccine development was a race, driven not just by scholarly or humanitarian ambition, but by the pursuit of power and profit. In light of the urgency of the collective need for a vaccine, this could seem scandalous. It is in fact the norm. Public health and the modern pharmaceutical industry are zones in which the interests of science and medicine have always intersected those of business and the state.
