Nathan D. Mumford
7/26/16
Dr. Eileen Hinks
BI-245X
Help Received: Authorized Aid
This course is titled Epidemics of Society. Ironically, both parts of this name could be separate courses in themselves. One could discuss the effect of society on the spread of disease, or even the effect of epidemics on society. Each one receiving a semester’s worth of study. This is a rich topic that has inspired entire careers and fields of study. And think, we did it all in five weeks. In that time period I learned that while epidemics have a role in the shaping of society, society has a role in how epidemics arise and are spread.
One of the best examples of this inverse relationship between epidemics and society is HIV (Artifact 10). The rate of infections, quite simply, would not have spread without a greater societal awareness of the virus. This is an example of society’s effect on epidemics. For the longest time, HIV/AIDS was ignored by the people who had the power to stop it before it got out of control: the people. It was defined as one of those diseases that only the gay, the poor, or the druggies get. Key influential leaders failed to even discuss the topic, and if discussed, determined to keep from ever having to do so again. Misconceptions about the transmissibility of the virus incited a nationwide panic here in America. People kicked children out of schools and daycares because they were totally unaware of the true manner in which the virus was spread. Child hemophiliacs were forced to interrupt their public schooling, their parents lost their jobs, and their families descended quickly into poverty. When asked to dispel the rumors, President Reagan only created more. Eventually, though, good things did happen in society. A thriving market for LGBT art and entertainment arose from this trial. Medical advancements were made in leaps and bounds. The cost of treatments was lowered by activists. These are all examples of epidemics having an effect on society.
In the case of tuberculosis, the epidemic had a strange effect on society (Artifact #8). Its presence in society for so long allowed for victims of tuberculosis to be glorified, or beautified in their journey of death. The men and women infected with TB were given the privilege of being spoken, painted, or written of in an appealing manner. As opposed to syphilis of course, but that’s another story. Of course, while glorified in public, the victims suffered inside the privacy of their own homes…if they were rich. The poorer victims had to remain in their crowded tenements and disgusting living conditions with no other option. They also had to face the terrible question of whether they had the acute, quick and painful death version, or the long slow slip into eternity version. Arising from all of these issues is one of the largest impacts of tuberculosis on society. As soon as it became common knowledge that nature and the open air had a hand in relieving the effects of—if not the cure of—the disease, people began flocking to colonize the American West. This epidemic had a hand in the settling of all these formerly uninhabited patches of wilderness in the Western region of the United States. A lot of our current fifty states had roots in the tuberculosis rush.
Many diseases also had a spectacular impact on the ethics of the medical practice, especially in the area of venereal studies (Artifact #5). International scientists doing studies in Guatemala abused the systems set in place by their host country and crossed ethical boundaries in the name of science. They infected people without their explicit permission, killing many, out of a desire to learn more about syphilis. It didn’t just happen in Guatemala. Down south in Tuskegee, Alabama, scientists injected poor African Americans with syphilis to study its effects. The choice of subjects was clearly racially motivated, and they went as far as to lie to these people about what was being placed inside their bodies. They were even denied treatment when their symptoms got too bad. After these medical malpractices were brought into the public limelight, clear restrictions and rules were set in place by the greater medical community to avoid things like this from ever happening again.
Epidemics definitely have a profound and lasting impact on our society, but society also has an impact on its epidemics.
The national panic of HIV/AIDS caused activists to come forward and begin campaigning for more funds to go toward the search for a cure. Through the work of activist groups and powerful supporters (cough Bono cough) the triple cocktail was discovered and made available to the public—after the price was lowered drastically of course. The insistence and work of President George W. Bush allowed for the dissemination of much needed HIV/AIDS drugs among some of the poorest nations in Africa. However, the education style of abstinence and a lack of needle exchange programs allows the virus to be spread relatively unchecked across countries, including our own United States of America (Artifact #10).
Tuberculosis lessened the severity of the borders of class, and the dissolution of social borders allowed the disease to be tracked down, treated, and almost entirely defeated (Artifact #8). The spread of treatments to both the rich and the poor relatively eliminated the disease from all of American society, hence its moniker, “the Forgotten Plague.”
The unethical syphilis studies that occurred in our society caused this, and other venereal diseases, to run rampant in poor communities. The public loss of faith in the federal government and the medical practice itself meant that infected individuals were much less likely to seek medical attention when some of the symptoms of a disease became noticed. Beyond a distrust in the government, some cultures had a highly pervasive religious or social stigma attached to many diseases. The people who contracted these diseases refused to come out and see doctors. Doing so would have called or a public shaming, and nobody wanted that.
Therefore, the duality of this course name is both unique and effective in its teaching strategy. Epidemics such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS had profound impacts on our society, some good and some bad. Likewise, society had an impact in either stopping, slowing, or encouraging the spread of the formerly listed diseases.
Works Cited
Artifact #5: Medical Malpractices in the Study of Venereal Diseases
Artifact #8: The Forgotten Plague
Artifact #10: HIV/AIDS
