MAKING THE PAP SMEAR INTO THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB - CERVICAL-CANCER SCREENING IN THE USA, CIRCA 1940-95

Despite being a rather recalcitrant tool, the 'Pap smear' is today the major cancer screening technology in the world. This paper examines h ow and why heterogeneous actors chose to advocate the Pap smear as a s creen for cervical cancer in the late 1940s, and to tinker both in and far beyond the diagnostic laboratory for over 50 years to make the Pa p smear 'fit' as a screening and clinical technology. Tinkerings inclu ded gendering the division of labour, attempting to automate reading o f smears, juggling costs, exploring alternative screening technologies , pushing for regulation of laboratories, and settling for locally-neg otiated orders of clinical accuracy instead of global standardization, still elusive today.