H1N1, globalization and the epidemiology of inequality
Section snippets
Inequalities in blame for the outbreak
“The outbreak narrative is a powerful story of ecological danger and epidemiological belonging, and as it entangles analyses of disease emergence and changing social and political formations, it affects the experience of both” (Wald, 2008: 33).
In her eloquent study of outbreak narratives literary critic Priscilla Wald shows how stories of disease emergence are generally told in ways that simultaneously and consequentially construct communities of insiders and outsiders. Contagions that start
Inequalities in risk management
“Severe disparities in public health can persist because of the array of technological, scientific and architectural innovations that enable wealthy households to insulate themselves from the environmental conditions of the poor. These public health inequalities – emboldened by the distortions of marketized public health and medical research – are creating the corporeal equivalents of gated communities” (Gandy, 2008a, Gandy, 2008b).
Matthew Gandy's argument based on research into health
Inequalities in access to medicines
Questions concerning production and distribution of resources such as vaccines and drugs during epidemics extend beyond underserved communities…. [The] current global regulatory mechanisms protecting pharmaceutical industries have driven prices of vaccines and antivirals up, diminished possibilities for collaborative production, and made it exceedingly difficult to manufacture cheaper generic versions. The result is that inequities in resource allocation occur between countries as well as
Inequalities encoded in the virus ecology
Factory practices provide what seems to be an amenable environment for the evolution of a variety of virulent influenzas, including pandemic strains. Swine flu H1N1, the most recent example arising early 2009 appears by definition industrial in origin. The closest ancestor for each of this H1N1's eight genomic segments is of swine origin. The segments have been identified as originating from different parts of the world: neuraminidase and the matrix protein from strains circulating in Eurasia,
Conclusions
Following Wallace, and yet also following Virchow whose exemplary innovations in the epidemiology of inequality began this article, we must note in conclusion that today's equivalents of hot stoves and Christmas apples – in short, all the diverse consumer goods, components and food coming out of the factories and factory farms of southern China – are no less connected to the production of disease. However, instead of ship hands suffering from cholera, today's victims of inequality-induced
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Perceptions of blame on social media during the coronavirus pandemic
2021, Computers in Human BehaviorCitation Excerpt :This requirement motivates individuals to systematically process available information surrounding an incident to assess whether to amplify or mitigate blame. Contrarily, rather than the methodical examination of available evidence to assign blame, research regarding previous epidemics suggests a recurring blame pattern concerning other collectives (Sparke & Anguelov, 2012). The story of disease emergence is most commonly expressed through the construct of communities of insiders and outsiders (Wald, 2008).
Stressful life events and social capital during the early phase of COVID-19 in the U.S.
2020, Social Sciences and Humanities OpenAfter polio: Imagining, planning, and delivering a world beyond eradication
2018, Health and PlaceCitation Excerpt :Likewise, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, who vigorously oppose polio vaccination and other forms of Western-backed intervention in Pakistan, have drawn parallels between seasonal polio campaigns in Balochistan and the periodic offensives launched by the Pakistani army in the region. These unanticipated and messy responses to the polio campaign act as a reminder that local realities of violence, informality, and inequality “still very much frame, constrain, and orient [global health] interventions” (Biehl and Petryna, 2013, p. 14; Sparke and Anguelov, 2012). Far from being an apolitical and technical tool, in other words, GPEI's collection of granular data to drive command-and-control targeting perpetuates local anxieties about the forceful incorporation of remote communities into broader projects of rule, especially those linked to federal crackdowns against the TTP and local manifestations of the US-led, drone-dominated “everywhere war” (Gregory, 2011) against terrorism.8
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