Tutorial 1. Flashcards
Tuskegeee Study
U.S Government Experiment
Untreated syphilis of black males
1932-1972 - University of Alabama - never treated males for syphilis - they were uneducated and told they had “Bad Blood” - Given Placebo’s
Racism Experiment - Penicillin Witheld - Did syphilis affect white and black males differently?
Led to Ethical Reform
Critical Epistemology
Philosophical Study of Knowledge
How do we know what we know?
Questioning the information people know - How is knowledge created and acquired?
Influenced by personal perception
Neoliberal Economic Policy
Minimal Government Intervention - encourages a free market economy
Greater power of the private sector and focusing on “productive” economic activities
Relates to the notion of structural violence
Less Money for school, drugs, vacation
Rich Get Richer, Poor get Poorer - disappearance of the middle class
Structural Violence
Social instituions create environments that support and maintain disparity in social injustice
Farmer believes structural violence in health care is a result of the commoditization of medical services
Direct Indirect harm through neglect and lack of necessary needs
The poor get blamed
-> Racism, ethnocentrism, sexism
Disguised by “cost effectiveness” or classism, Capitalism
What are the similarities and differences between the Harvard -Haiti axis and the race-and-space issues in the US?
Harvard- Haiti axis demonstrates the vast chasm between the best Medical School in the world and one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere - Couldn’t be a larger disconnect
Race and Space shows the significant difference in disease indicators between blacks, whites and Hispanics
You cannot always apply theories and philosophies in the field
In Boston, the black people had poorer health, health care and schooling
In Haiti, Bad access to resources at Harvard, Access to everything
-> make people at Harvard learn to care
Farmer believes that poverty is the greatest risk factor for HIV and TB - Directly affects transmission, diagnosis and treatment of the disease
TB causes
Housing: Overcrowding, poor ventilation, locations discouraging open windows, lack of sanitary facilities
Education: Unaware of risk factors or symptoms/what to do if symptoms arise
Employment: Some Jobs = risk factors like Fibre mills, mining, exposure to smoke etc… Inability to seek treatment due to work hours
Food: Malnutrition weakens the immune system - increase risk of infection and active infection (vs. Latent TB)
Gender: Women more often caregivers, esp to sick - less likely to be able to seek out treatment due to domestic responsibilities
HIV Causes
Gender: Women at much greater risk due to inability to demand condom use
Women accused of infidelity if requesting condoms
Co infection - HIV is opportunistic with other infections
Food: Malnutrition
Other risks: IV drug use, Vertical transmission
Farmer states that anthropologists have been guilty of mistaking structural violence for cultural differences. Explain
Anthropologists trained to observe and describe different cultures. places and avoid critical analysis which has been attributed to judgement in the past
–> More of a “this is interesting” observations vs. This is damn wrong
Observer/outsider without understanding to criticize OR as an insider with embodied acceptance of existing structural violence, the basic observation that people are living in poverty and would not choose to do so can be overlooked
Move “Slumdog Millionaire - Chronicling intense poverty - is this “just” how things are in India?
Explain Farmers position on the labels of “emerging” and “remerging” diseases and how visibility affects these labels
Labels are a factor of visibility and the effects of these diseases on those who are economically advantaged and in positions of power
TB is not reemerging because it has never gone away in impoverished people - publicized as reemerging as members within US border are sufficiently alarming as to pose a health threat to MDRTB - costly solutions
TB rates were reduced in US in 60’s - TB programs dismantled and funds reassigned - key to continuation of TB infections in US
Pathogens that may genuinely be referred to as emerging have often been around for some time but have not affected westernized nations. International travel changes this. Bioterrorism, movies and novels are mass media goldmines.
