EnviroInjustice Researchers
Enviornmental injustice researcher's program pages.
Enviornmental injustice researcher's program pages.
Collections of readings that examine and conceptualize environmental injustice.
As a researcher, I’m interested in the political, ecological, and cultural debates around mosquito-borne diseases and the solutions proposed to mitigate them.
When we received the task, my first impulse was to investigate about the contemporary effects of anthropogenic climate change in mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans. But I was afraid to make the same mistake that I did in my PhD research. I wrote my PhD proposal while based in the US, more specifically in New England, during the Zika epidemic, and proposed to understand how scientists were studying ecological climate change and mosquitoes in Brazil. However, once I arrived in the country the political climate was a much more pressing issue, with the dismantling of health and scientific institutions.
Thus, after our meeting yesterday, and Jason Ludwig’s reminder that the theme of our Field Campus is the plantation, I decided to focus on how it related to mosquitoes in New Orleans.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito and the yellow fever virus it can transmit are imbricated in the violent histories of settler-colonialism and slavery that define the plantation economy. The mosquito and the virus arrived in the Americas in the same ships that brought enslaved peoples from Africa. The city of New Orleans had its first yellow fever epidemic in 1796, with frequent epidemics happening between 1817 and 1905. What caused New Orleans to be the “City of the Dead,” as Kristin Gupta has indicated, was yellow fever. However, as historian Urmi Engineer Willoughby points out, the slave trade cannot explain alone the spread and persistance of the disease in the region: "Alterations to the landscape, combined with demographic changes resulting from the rise of sugar production, slavery, and urban growth all contributed to the region’s development as a yellow fever zone." For example, sugar cultivation created ideal conditions for mosquito proliferation because of the extensive landscape alteration and ecological instabilities, including heavy deforestation and the construction of drainage ditches and canals.
Historian Kathryn Olivarius examines how for whites "acclimatization" to the disease played a role in hierarchies with “acclimated” (immune) people at the top and a great mass of “unacclimated” (non-immune) people and how for black enslaved people "who were embodied capital, immunity enhanced the value and safety of that capital for their white owners, strengthening the set of racialized assumptions about the black body bolstering racial slavery."
As I continue to think through these topics, I wonder how both the historical materialities of the plantation and the contemporary anthropogenic changes might be influencing mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans nowadays? And more, how the regions’ histories of race and class might still be shaping the effects of these diseases and how debates about them are framed?
The article focuses more on the fallacies of our current approaches to medicine. Dr. Kramer contends that the public would benefit from physicians melding their current factual approaches with anecdotal methods as well. Particularly, the field of psychiatry, which dabbles in processes of the brain not yet understood. While Dr. Kramer acknowledges it is necessary to have a well-defined approach, using "stories" allows for a more enriched judgement and remind practitioners of the vast differences in human experience.
As the data is from 1998, I would sincerely hope that the data has already encouraged responses. Nonetheless, at the very least, the data should be able to serve as a marker for progression in traumatic event services. While sexual assault is markedly different from other traumatic events, the data could also be extrapolated to other events with community ties. More pointedly, data from this study demonstrated where some of the gaps came between victims with the "best" service outcomes and those with the "worst". The primary difference between the "best" group and those in latter tears was in the legal system. These shortcomings appeared to emerge early on, with a discrepancy in whether their reports even made it to the desk of the prosecution from the police department. This indicates a shortcoming in the system, and a point which should be investigated to better victim outcomes moving forward. Sexual assault cases are rarely black and white, thus some detectives may be inclined to create personal judgments about the merit of a case before passing it along, thus leading to its exclusion. This is one of several differences in victim encounters leading to less desired outcomes.
This report provides a detailed analysis of international response to nuclear emergencies. In addition to reviewing historic nuclear emergencies and their responses, it examines current nuclear policies. Initial reactions to previous nuclear emergencies (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, ect.) focused on preventing future incidents. Yet, Dr. Schmid argues increased safety measures and rigorous regulation cannot possibly safeguard against all emergency scenarios. She emphasizes the need to create an international organization to serve as an emergent response team, and explores several candidates such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and World Association of Nuclear Operators. However, Dr. Schmid concludes none of these suggested organizations currently have the fiscal capability or internation authority to act in this role.
As I mentioned in earlier answers, at the peak of the crack-cocaine epidemic, BSVAC was founded (1988). It took outside EMS agencies an average of 30 minutes to reach patients with Bed-Stuy, a time that is far too costly for major trauma patients. This causes the current Commander (formerly referred to as Captain) "Rocky" Robinson to begin a volunteer EMS agency within the city itself. Placing the agency in the city decreased response time significantly, with BSVAC now averaging a response time of less than 4 minutes.
Paul Farmer: American anthropologist and physician best known for his work combating tuberculosis in developing countries. Co-founder of Partners in Health, an organization dedicated to establishing and developing health care systems in under-served areas.
Bruce Nizeye: Engineer who works with Partners in Health directing the building program. Rwandese by birth and survivor of the Rwanda Genocide.
Sara Stulac: Associate physicain in Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's hospital. Clinical Director for PIH in Rwanda
Salmaan Keehavjee: Associate professor of global health and science medicine at Harvard Medical School. Specializes in tuberculosis research and proliferation.
The policy specifically includes elements directed specifically at first responders. This includes testing of various scenarios that contain possible Ebola cases. One of the main highlights of the taped press conference seemed to be communication between main health centers deemed fit to treat Ebola and urgent care/transporting facilities. This includes knowledge of first responders about which of these facilities can handle Ebola cases and how to treat a scene with a possible Ebola patient.
Scott G. Knowles: Department of History Head, Associate Professor in the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Drexel University. Dr. Knowles specifically focuses on disaster, risk, and technological history. Multiple publications also extend into public policy, modern disaster response, and future risks.