Dying a Natural Death: Ethics and Political Activism for Endemic Infectious Disease
Abstract
This chapter addresses the representational politics of endemicity, arguing provocatively that viruses don’t kill people—people kill people. In pursuit of this claim, the authors develop a framework derived from historical studies of public health and from contemporary research in Structural One Health to argue that endemicity is not a natural phenomenon but is rather produced by social and economic policies. The authors argue that causal relations of endemic disease must be restructured in the popular imaginary. This chapter uses epidemics with isolated examples of “endemic” instances (tuberculosis in particular) to consider hierarchies and levels of cause, how these relate to global political economy, and with what implications for preventive and responsive action.
Keywords
Influenza Pandemic Configurationist Model Social Disadvantage Endemic Disease Contaminationist ModelReferences
- Ackernecht, E. (1982). A short history of medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
- Ahlgren, I., Yamada, S., & Wong, A. (2014). Rising oceans, climate change, food aid, and human rights in the Marshall Islands. Health and Human Rights Journal, 16, 69–80.Google Scholar
- Ali, S. H., & Keil, R. (2008). Networked disease: Emerging infections in the global city. London/New York: Wiley Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Barnes, D. S. (1995). The making of a social disease: Tuberculosis in nineteenth-century France. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
- Bashford, A. (2014). Imperial hygiene: A critical history of colonialism, nationalism and public health. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
- Bashford, A., & Strange, C. (2007). Thinking historically about public health. Medical Humanities, 33, 87–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bauman, Z. (2013). Liquid modernity. London: Wiley.Google Scholar
- Bosely, S. (2015, February 25). Ebola endemic in West Africa remains a risk, scientists warn. The Guardian. London. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/25/ebola-endemic-west-africa-scientists-warn
- Bryant, C., & Jary, D. (1997). Anthony Giddens: Critical assessments. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Bryder, L., Condrau, F., & Worboys, M. (2010). Tuberculosis and its histories: Then and now. In F. Condrau & M. Worboys (Eds.), Tuberculosis then and now: Perspectives on the history of an infectious disease (pp. 3–23). Montreal: McGill University Press.Google Scholar
- Bynum, H. (2012). Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Carleton University Survey Centre. (2014). Ebola risk perception survey. Ottawa: Carleton University. Available at: http://policyoptions.irpp.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/09/Final-Topline-Report.pdf
- Centres of Disease Control (2008). The next flu pandemic: What to expect. A CDC fact sheet. In Control CoD (Ed.), Atlanta. Centres of Disease Control: Ga.Google Scholar
- Centres of Disease Control. (2012). Self study course SS1978: Principles of epidemiology in public health practice, third edition: An introduction to applied epidemiology and biostatistics: Lesson 1: Introduction to epidemiology. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/ophss/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section11.html
- Colgrove, J. (2002). The McKeown thesis: An historical controversy and its enduring influence. American Journal of Public Health, 92, 725–729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Davies, S. E. (2008). Securitizing infectious disease. International Affairs, 84, 295–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Degeling, C. (2014, August 19). How Western national interest drives Ebola drug development. The Conversation. Sydney. Available at: https://theconversation.com/how-western-national-interest-drives-ebola-drug-development-30530
- Degeling, C., & Kerridge, I. (2013). Hendra in the news: Public policy meets public morality in times of zoonotic uncertainty. Social Science and Medicine, 82, 156–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Degeling, C., Johnson, J., & Mayes, C. (2015). Impure politics and pure science: Efficacious Ebola medications are only a palliation and not a cure for structural disadvantage. The American Journal of Bioethics, 15, 43–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Doherty, P. (2014, 31 July). How threatened are we by Ebola virus? The Drum. Sydney: ABC. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-31/doherty-how-threatened-are-we-by-ebola-virus/5638438
- Dry, S., & Leach, M. (2010). Epidemics: Science, governance and social justice. London/Washington, DC: Earthscan.Google Scholar
- Dubos, R., & Dubos, J. (1952). The white plague: Tuberculosis, man, and society. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
- Farmer, P. (1996). Social inequalities and emerging infectious diseases. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2, 259–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Farmer, P. (2000). Social medicine and the challenge of bio-social research. Conference paper delivered at innovative structures in basic research, Max Planck Institute, Ringberg Castle, October 4–7. Available at: http://xserve02.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/ringberg/Talks/farmer/Farmer.html
- Fieldman, G. (2011). Neoliberalism, the production of vulnerability and the hobbled state: Systemic barriers to climate adaptation. Climate and Development, 3, 159–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Gollust, S. E., Lantz, P. M., & Ubel, P. A. (2009). The polarizing effect of news media messages about the social determinants of health. American Journal of Public Health, 99, 2160–2167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hamlin, C. (2008). Commentary: Ackerknecht and ‘Anticontagionism’: A tale of two dichotomies. International Journal of Epidemiology, 38, 22–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Harman, S. (2014, August 14). Ebola, polio, HIV: It’s dangerous to mix healthcare and foreign policy. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/aug/14/ebola-polio-hiv-healthcare-foreign-policy
- Hershkovitz, I., Donoghue, H., Minnikin, D., et al. (2008). Detection and molecular characterization of 9000-year-old Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a neolithic settlement in the Eastern Mediterranean. PLoS ONE, 3, e3426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hinchliffe, S. (2015). More than one world, more than one health: Re-configuring interspecies health. Social Science and Medicine, 129, 28–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Holloway, K. L., Staub, K., Rühli, F., et al. (2014). Lessons from history of socioeconomic improvements: A new approach to treating multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. Journal of Biosocial Science, 46, 600–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hooker, C., Mayes, C., Degeling, C., et al. (2014). Don’t be scared, be angry: The politics and ethics of Ebola. Medical Journal of Australia, 201, 352–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Isaakidis, P., Smith, S., Majumdar, S., et al. (2014). Calling tuberculosis a social disease—An excuse for complacency? The Lancet, 384, 1095.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Jones, J. (2011). Ebola, emerging: The limitations of culturalist discourses in epidemiology. Journal of Global Health, 1, 1–6.Google Scholar
- Jones, K. E., Patel, N. G., & Levy, M. A. (2008). Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature, 451, 990–993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kaufman, S. (2014, October 5) Former SC GOP director: Execute anyone who comes into contact with Ebola — ‘it’s just math’. RawStory. Available at: http://www.rawstory.com/2014/10/former-sc-gop-director-execute-anyone-who-comes-into-contact-with-ebola-its-just-math/
- Kehr, J. (2012). Blind spots and adverse conditions of care: Screening migrants for tuberculosis in France and Germany. Sociology of Health and Illness, 34, 251–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kelland, K. (2014, September 23). Ever-present endemic Ebola now major concern for disease experts. Reuters. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/23/us-health-ebola-endemic-idUSKCN0HI1OX20140923
- Kenny, K. (2015). The biopolitics of global health: Life and death in neoliberal time. Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 9–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- King, N. (2002). Security, disease, commerce: Ideologies of postcolonial global health. Social Studies of Science, 32, 763–789.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Krieger, N. (1994). Epidemiology and the web of causation: Has anyone seen the spider? Social Science and Medicine, 39, 887–903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lakoff, A. (2008). The generic biothreat: Or, how we became unprepared. Cultural Anthropology, 23, 399–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Larsson, M. (2009). Shattered ANZACS: Living with the scars of wars. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
- Latour, B. (1995). We have never been modern. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Law, J. (2006). Disaster in agriculture: Or foot and mouth mobilities. Environment and Planning A, 38, 227–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Law, J., & Mol, A. (2008). Globalisation in practice: On the politics of boiling pigswill. Geoforum, 39, 133–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lawn, S. D., & Zumla, A. I. (2011). Tuberculosis. Lancet, 378, 57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lebarbenchon, C., Feare, C. J., Renaud, F., et al. (2010). Persistence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in natural ecosystems. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 16, 1057–1062.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lupton, D., & Petersen, A. (1996). The new public health: Health and self in the age of risk. London: Sage.Google Scholar
- Marmot, M., & Wilkinson, R. (2003). Social determinants of health: The solid facts. Copenhagen: World Health Organisation.Google Scholar
- Maron D. F. (2014, December 29). Is Ebola here to stay? Scientific American. Available at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-ebola-here-to-stay/.
- Morens, D., Folkers, G., & Fauci, A. (2004). The challege of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Nature, 430, 242–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Moser, G. (2014). Radiology in the Nazi era: part 4. Combating tuberculosis between ‘Volksrontgenkataster’ and ‘SS-Rontgensturmbann’. Strahlentherapie und Onkologie: Organ der Deutschen Rontgengesellschaft. 190(6): 615-619.Google Scholar
- Packard, R. M. (1989). White plague, black labor: Tuberculosis and the political economy of health and disease in South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
- Peckham, R. (2014). Pathologizing Crime, Criminalizing Disease. In Robert Peckham (Ed.) Disease and Crime: A history of social pathologies and the new politics of health. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 1-18.Google Scholar
- Pelling, M. (2001). The meaning of contagion: Reproduction, medicine and metaphor. In A. Bashford & C. Hooker (Eds.), Contagion: Historical and cultural studies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Pew Research Center (2014). Ebola worries rise, but most are ‘fairly’ confident in government, hospitals to deal with disease. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.Google Scholar
- Phillips, L. (2014, August 13). The political economy of Ebola. Jacobin Magazine. Available at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/the-political-economy-of-ebola/
- Rosenberg, C. (1992). Explaining epidemics: And other studies in the history of medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Saletan, W. (2014, October 28). Why the GOP insists on finding a military solution for fighting Ebola. Slate. The Slate Group. Available at: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/10/republicans_want_a_general_to_fight_ebola_the_gop_prefers_the_u_s_military.html
- Schwartz, D. (2014, August 8). Ebola outbreak: It’s not the virus but Africa that’s changed. CBC News. Available at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-outbreak-it-s-not-the-virus-but-africa-that-s-changed-1.2729264
- Scoones, I. (2011). Science, policy and politics: Avian influenza. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
- Seeberg, J. (2013). The death of Shankar: Social exclusion and tuberculosis in a poor neighbourhood in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. In U. Skoda, K. B. Nielsen, & M. Q. Fibiger (Eds.), Navigating social exclusion and inclusion in contemporary India and beyond: Structures, agents, practices (pp. 207–226). New York: Anthem Press.Google Scholar
- Selgelid, M., Battin, M., & Smith, C. (2006). Ethics and infectious disease. London: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
- Selgelid, M. J., McLean, A., Arinaminpathy, N., et al. (2011). Infectious disease ethics. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Seltzer, M. (2014). Crime Between History and Natural History. In Robert Peckham (Ed.) Disease and Crime: A history of social pathologies and the new politics of health. New York: Routledge, pp. 151-168.Google Scholar
- Trauer, J. M., Denholm, J. T., & McBryde, E. S. (2014). Construction of a mathematical model for tuberculosis transmission in highly endemic regions of the Asia-pacific. Journal of theoretical biology, 358, 74-84.Google Scholar
- Thompson A. (2014, August 19). Ebola: An emergency within an emergency. Impact Ethics. Dalhousie University. Available at: http://impactethics.ca/2014/08/19/ebola-an-emergency-within-an-emergency/
- Tremblay, G. (2007). Historical statistics support a hypothesis linking tuberculosis and air pollution caused by coal. International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, 11, 722–732.Google Scholar
- Upshur, R. (2010). What does it mean to ‘know’ a disease? The tragedy of XDR-TB.” In Peckham S and Hann A (Eds) Public Health Ethics and Practice. Bristol: Policy Press, 51-65.Google Scholar
- Upshur, R., Singh, J., & Ford, N. (2009). Apocalypse or redemption: Responding to extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 87, 481–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- van Loon, J. (2005). Epidemic space. Critical Public Health, 15, 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Verweij, M. (2011). Infectious disease control. In A. Dawson & M. Verweij (Eds.), Public health ethics: Key concepts and issues in policy and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Wald, P. (2008). Contagious: Cultures, carriers, and the outbreak narrative. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
- Wallace R. (2014). Neoliberal Ebola? Farming Pathogens. Available at: https://farmingpathogens.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/neoliberal-ebola
- Wallace, R., Bergmann, L., Kock, R., et al. (2014). The dawn of structural one health: A new science tracking disease emergence along circuits of capital. Social Science and Medicine, 129, 68–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- WHO Ebola Response Team (2014). Ebola virus disease in West Africa—The first 9 months of the epidemic and forward projections. New England Journal of Medicine, 371, 1481–1495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- World Health Organisation (2013). Pandemic influenza risk management: WHO interim guidance. Geneva: World Health Organisation.Google Scholar
- World Health Organisation. (2015). Neglected tropical diseases. Available at: http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/