EGENIS seminar: "Re-centring disease control: How the FDA animal rule is remaking the more-than-human geographies of drug discovery and development " Prof Gail Davies (University of Exeter)

This perhaps rather obscure piece of legislation, enacted by US Congress in 2002, enables drugs developed in animals to be licensed for use in humans in emergency contexts without human efficacy trials, so long as certain conditions around need and evidence are met. Using the case of the 2022 mpox outbreak, I explore the implications of the FDA animal rule in shaping the changing geographies of drug discovery and development. The new immunological infrastructure and imaginaries facilitated through the FDA animal rule could have the effect of recentring disease control in high biocontainment animal research laboratories in America and Europe, potentially marginalizing the health and health services of the global majority.