Below, a guest post by Priscilla Wald, the author of the book Contagious (Duke University Press, 2008), a history of how the narratives of epidemics and global pandemics obscure the real cause of such health problems. This essay originally appeared as an op-ed in the Herald Sun (www.HeraldSun.com.)
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Panic sells newspapers. It keeps our televisions on. It is exhilarating in its way. Even addictive. And it has consequences. People, places and behaviors are stigmatized. Panic affects economies. Travelers cancel trips to Mexico, California and New York. Movies, concerts and sports events are postponed.
In the midst of a threat of pandemic, the media do not remind us of the national health insurance crisis or of the lack of access to health care that is truly a global disaster. Mid-crisis, the problem of global poverty seems too large to address or even comprehend. We have more immediate concerns.
Yet, the threat of a pandemic is precisely the moment for such reminders -- that access to health care should not be a luxury, but a basic human right and a priority, at home and abroad.
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