| This dissertation examines the late-twentieth century concept of “emerging diseases” in the context of changes in American history and political economy. Beginning in the early 1990s, American virologists and public health officials initiated a campaign to draw attention to the emergence of new infectious diseases and reemergence of drug-resistant strains of old ones. This campaign responded to changes in the microbial world that affected the incidence and distribution of infectious disease worldwide. It was also deeply influenced by a larger matrix of historical forces. This work embeds the emerging diseases campaign within this matrix, delineating the social, institutional, political, technological, and economic factors that shaped it, and demonstrating how it drew upon broader American cultural logics. It also uses the campaign as a case study in delineating salient features of American culture and society at the end of the millennium.; The emerging diseases campaign was a response to the consequences of modernity; the political and economic transformations accompanying globalization; the impact of each of these phenomena on perceptions of risk; and the growing importance of commodification and consumer culture in American society. Chapter One outlines a comprehensive theory of the commodification of disease, arguing that the concept of “emerging diseases” is best understood as a commodity that was produced, circulated, and consumed by particular actors operating in a late-twentieth century American cultural context. Chapter Two uses a case study of Ebola hemorrhagic fever to investigate the impact of reflexivity and changes in media technology on perceptions of disease and public health. Chapter Three examines the impact of globalization on perceptions of and responses to racial and ethnic disparities in tuberculosis morbidity and mortality. Chapter Four examines the explosion of interest in biological terrorism during the late 1990s, which exemplified novel fears regarding globalization, risk, and modern biotechnology, and illustrated the increasing centrality of information in the theory and practice of public health at the end of the millennium. |
