Framing the Body Politic: Advocacy Science and Setting the Risk Agenda

Abstract

Epidemics are defined by the rapid spread of disease through a population. Since John Snow first traced London’s typhoid outbreaks of the 1840s to the Broad Street pump, stopping epidemics has been one major achievement of medical sciences. In one of the most notable wins for public health, Snow convinced the Board of Guardians of St. James Parish to remove the typhoid-transmitting pump handle at the local well. The rates of typhoid infection declined rapidly slowing the spread of disease became the basis of much public health policy. Epidemics could be prevented, scientists discovered, as long as the cause of the outbreak could be identified, and the population inoculated against the pathogen. Epidemiology launched the public health movement, and its unique way of improving health, not only through individual treatments but through environmental intervention. Public water, agriculture, nutrition, sanitation, air quality and toxic materials were now all health issues. Over the years medical researchers have become highly accomplished in discovering how viral, bacterial or toxic materials are being communicated through our environment. As with smallpox, diphtheria, flu and polio, epidemiologists have saved millions of lives. They have also made epidemic into the code red word that signals escalating and out-of-control health risks.