public health

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  4/22/2021
  

  The Great Forgetting: Why We Forget Epidemics and Why This One Must Be Remembered

  by Nina Burleigh

  "For most Americans, the history of the 1918 flu shares space in that ever-larger tomb of oblivion with the history of other diseases of our great-grandparents’ time that vaccines have now eradicated."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  4/21/2021
  

  Revisiting a 19th Century Medical Idea Could Help Address COVID-19

  by Melanie A. Kiechle

  Although the miasma theory of disease has been replaced by the germ theory, it's nevertheless the case that it drew attention to the connection between air quality and health, and the practical measures inspired by it can be useful in the COVID pandemic. 

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• SOURCE: NIH Director's Blog
  4/15/2021
  

  Fauci Donates Model to Smithsonian’s COVID-19 Collection

  Dr. Anthony Fauci's model of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a prop in numerous informational sessions since the beginning of the pandemic. Now, the plastic germ will reside in the Smithsonian's collections. 

• 
• SOURCE: Edge Effects
  4/15/2021
  

  What 19th-Century Domestic Manuals Say about Housing as Infrastructure

  by Leah Marie Becker

  "We are only as safe as the person breathing the most polluted air or with the least access to stable housing."

• 
• SOURCE: WEMU
  4/12/2021
  

  U-M Medical Historian Says It Appears History Is Repeating Itself In Our Current Pandemic

  Medical Historian Alex Navarro warns that resistance to vaccines and public health measures are likely to prolong the COVID pandemic the way they did the 1919 influenza. 

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  4/9/2021
  

  The First ‘Vaccine Passports’ Were Scars from Smallpox Vaccinations

  Faced with unreliable and falsifiable documentation, public health authorities at the turn of the 20th century demanded physical proof of vaccination: the scarring left by the early technique, says smallpox historian Michael Willrich.

• 
• SOURCE: ABC 10
  3/21/2021
  

  Historian Brooke Newman on the Front Lines of COVID Vaccination

  Historian Brooke Newman, after careful research, is allowing her daughter to participate in the a trial of a vaccine, already tested for teens, on younger children. They cite the personal desire to return to normalcy, the documented safety of the vaccine in earlier trials, and advancing the collective cause of public health in their decision.

• 
• SOURCE: Scientific American
  3/20/2021
  

  We Need Social Science, Not Just Medical Science, to Beat the Pandemic

  by Nicholas Dirks

  "In order to ensure that scientific advances work not just to create new medicines but to help lead to a healthier and more just world, we need to ensure that science and social science work hand in hand as well."

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  3/10/2021
  

  How Failed Quarantines Led to 20th-Century Measles Outbreaks

  Misperception of the severity of measles contributed to loosely enforced and poorly observed quarantining around periodic outbreaks of the disease. 

• 
• 3/14/2021
  

  Remembering the Father of Vaccination

  by Richard Gunderman

  "Whether or not Jenner truly saved more lives than any other person, there is no doubt that his pioneering work on immunization laid the groundwork for today’s most effective tool against COVID-19, the vaccine."

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  3/4/2021
  

  People Longing for Movie Theaters During the 1918 Flu Pandemic Feels Very Familiar in 2021

  As in 2020, public health concerns closed movie theaters in 1918. But then, without home streaming technology, a fledgling industry was threatened with ruin. Hollywood bounced back because so many Americans missed the theater experience.

• 
• SOURCE: Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast
  3/2/2021
  

  The 1976 Swine Flu Fiasco

  David Parsons of the "Nostalgia Trap" history podcast joins Mass For Shut-Ins to discuss the Swine Flue vaccine fiasco and how its history has been abused by today's anti-vax movement.

• 
• SOURCE: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
  3/1/2021
  

  A Rapidly Globalizing World Needs Strengthened Global Governance

  by Lawrence Wittner

  "The world is currently engulfed in crises—most prominently, a disease pandemic, a climate catastrophe, and the prevalence of war—while individual nations are encountering enormous difficulties in coping with them."

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  2/25/2021
  

  With Free Medical Clinics and Patient Advocacy, the Black Panthers Created a Legacy in Community Health That Still Exists Amid COVID-19

  by Olivia B. Waxman and Arpita Aneja

  Sociologist and social movement historian Alondra Nelson explains that Black Panther Party community action to provide health services grew out of a mistrust of mainstream health institutions' willingness to direct resources to the needs of poor Black communities, a mistrust that remains today. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/24/2021
  

  Many Black Americans Aren’t Rushing to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine – A Long History of Medical Abuse Suggests Why

  by Esther Jones

  From J. Marion Sims to the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments to the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks' DNA, there are ample historical reasons for Black Americans to feel that medical authorities are unconcerned with their safety and mistrust new COVID vaccines. Acknowledging this history is essential for public health authorities to gain trust. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/23/2021
  

  Having Vaccines Alone isn’t Enough to Defeat COVID-19

  by Joyce Chaplin

  Early efforts at smallpox innoculation showed the importance of social and political factors in making new medical technologies effective. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/12/2021
  

  Medical Racism has Shaped U.S. Policies for Centuries

  by Deirdre Cooper Owens

  Medical racism over centuries has "created a system of belief and practice that allowed doctors to place blame on Black people for not having the same health outcomes as White people."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/15/2021
  

  Eroding Trust, Spreading Fear: The Historical Ties Between Pandemics And Extremism

  Historian John Fea says that the COVID-19 pandemic is one of a long line of disease outbreaks encouraging paranoid thinking and a siege mentality. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Marshall Project
  5/14/2021
  

  I Survived Prison During The AIDS Epidemic. Here’s What It Taught Me About Coronavirus

  by Richard Rivera

  Like the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, imprisoned people at risk of COVID-19 find that suspicion, paranoia and isolation have taken the place of meaningful support. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  2/9/2021
  

  What’s at Stake in the Fight Over Reopening Schools

  by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

  In cities like Chicago, parents anxious to return children to school have blamed teachers' unions. The historian and New Yorker columnist argues that some proponents of reopening are using racial equity arguments in bad faith while ignoring the gross racial inequalities that characterized schooling-as-usual before the pandemic and the work of teachers' unions to fight it.