Political Prescriptions: Three Pandemic Stories

Abstract

In this article, we symmetrically explore the political underpinnings and connections of pharmaceutical drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic. We illustrate some different and shifting dynamics of expert-lay interplay, competing knowledge claims in politically charged environments, as well as actions and actors that can bring drugs to prominence. Focusing on three drugs, ivermectin, remdesivir, and Coronil, we offer three axes on which they can be apprehended within political logics: (a) ivermectin as a “populist drug” in the United States, (b) remdesivir as an “establishment drug” in the United States, and (c) Coronil as a “nationalist drug” in India. These three pharmaceuticals were politicized, and perhaps more surprising, politics became pharmaceuticalized. Trust in these treatments was intimately related to articulations of the threats posed by the pandemic and the best ways of addressing them, both manipulated politically by relatively powerful actors.