medical history 
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
5/15/2023
If it's Ineffective and Harmful, Why is Gay Conversion Therapy Still Around?
by Andrea Ens
Conversion therapies endure because their purpose is political, not therapeutic. They seek and symbolize the eradication of LGBTQ people from society and are promoted by groups who want that eradication to happen.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
4/18/2023
Jonathan Kennedy Tells the World's History through Eight Plagues
A new book asks whether microbes have been bending the narrative arc of history all along.
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SOURCE: Nature
4/17/2023
Medical Drawings of Pregnancy Have Centered Fetuses and Uteruses—While Erasing Women
Early depictions of the fetus in utero—imaginative as much as descriptive—were a boon to obstetric medicine, but also placed the fetus above the mother in terms of the medical system's concern, contends medical historian Rebecca Whiteley
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SOURCE: The Conversation
3/27/2023
Gender-Affirming Care Has a Long History, and Has Affected Non-Trans People Too
by G. Samantha Rosenthal
Medical intervention to make people's bodies conform to their assigned place in the gender binary has a long history; it has been controversial principally when the same treatments have been used by transgender people.
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SOURCE: The Baffler
3/23/2023
The PR War for Cancer Awareness has Reduced the Stigma, but not the Cost, of Illness
Elaine Schattner examines the work of activists who brought cancer diagnoses into the light and demanded that resources be invested in treating patients. It's not clear what can be done to help a typical American affort those treatments, though.
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SOURCE: Nursing Clio
3/22/2023
History of Reproductive Law Shows Women in Power aren't the Solution
by Lara Friedenfelds
The end of Roe v. Wade makes difficult pregnancies and miscarriages potentially legaly perilous for women. The history of how the law determines fault in a lost pregnancy shows that women are as capable as men of participating in a regime that punishes other women for the ends of their pregnancies.
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SOURCE: Nursing Clio
3/15/2023
"If they were White and Insured, Would they have Died?"
by Udodiri R. Okwandu
Texas's new maternal mortality report shows that historical patterns of medical racism are continuing, and the state plans to do little but blame Black women for the inadequate care they receive.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/21/2023
Does Sen. Fetterman's Depression Disclosure Signal Change in Mental Health Acceptance?
by Jonathan Sadowsky
51 years ago the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Thomas Eagleton, was dropped from the ticket when it was revealed he had received treatment for depression. A historian of mental health says it's too simple to declare progress without acknowledging ongoing stigma.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
2/14/2023
Historical Data on Mosquito Range Shows Climate Change is Spreading Malaria Risk
Data stretching back to 1898 show mosquitoes spreading further from the equator in Africa year by year, with recent acceleration consistent with climate change estimates.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
2/11/2023
Medical Historians: We've Been Taught to Forget What We Used to Know about Head Injuries in Sports
Stephen Casper, Emily Harrison and Jeremy Greene argue that league-affiliated researchers who claim the jury is out about whether head injuries in competition contribute to long-term cognitive and mental deterioration are ignoring a long archive of medical studies that solidifies the link.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
1/23/2023
Nobody Has My Condition But Me
by Beverly Gage
Presenting with unusual autoimmune symptoms tied to a thus-far unique genetic mutation placed a reseacher and biographer on the other side of being studied.
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SOURCE: National Library of Medicine
1/22/2023
National Library of Medicine Announces 2023 History Talks
NLM History Talks promote awareness and use of NLM and related historical collections for research, education, and public service in biomedicine, the social sciences, and the humanities.
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SOURCE: Nursing Clio
1/10/2023
John Fetterman and the Politics of Disability
by Anya Jabour
The personal became political for a historian who experienced disability similar to that affecting the new Pennsylvania senator on the campaign trail. The media must significantly readjust its framing of how disability impacts the ability to perform work.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
12/12/2022
Why Has American Progress Stalled? Blame Our Belief in "Eureka!"
Moments of creative innovation matter, but invention depends on a society that is prepared to take advantage and distribute the benefits.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
12/1/2022
A Medical Historian Confronts Her Own Diagnosis
by Lindsey Fitzharris
"The experience has got me thinking about the women who came before me and how their pain and suffering accelerated medical advancements from which I am benefiting."
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11/20/2022
Transgender Youth Have Doubters. They Also Have History
by Pax Attridge
Opponents of gender-affirming medical intervention for trans youth invoke "transtrendiness" or social influence to claim that they're protecting youth from impulsively making medical decisions based on peer pressure. To accept this belief is to ignore the historical presence of transgender youth.
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11/13/2022
Monkeypox Has Been Around for Decades; This Outbreak is a Product of Neglect
by Alessandro Hammond and Cameron Sabet
The world's response to viral outbreaks in poor nations demonstrates the hoarding of resources in the Global North, but it's ultimately self-defeating for rich nations, too.
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SOURCE: The Baffler
10/25/2022
Doctors Who? The Radical History of DIY Transition
by Jules Gill-Peterson
As trans people's access to the medical system is under attack by law and political rhetoric, it may be necessary to revisit the history of trans women taking their gender transitions into their own hands.
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SOURCE: NPR
9/27/2022
Recovering the Story of the Black Men who were the Nation's First Paramedics
In Pittsburgh's Hill District in the 1960s, a group of Black men from a neighborhood where many were considered unemployable revolutionized emergency medical response. But the story of Freedom House has been suppressed.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
9/8/2022
Why Medical Exceptions to Abortion Bans Won't Protect Women
by Evan Hart
Under new restrictive state laws, judges and lawyers, not doctors or patients, will decide who can get a medically necessary abortion.
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