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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?

In terms of first responders, not much of this policy will effect them due to the fact that issues such as insurance and medicaid are not really an issue handled by EMS. The only thing I can think of is how this might effect a patient possibly worrying about insurance and wanting to refuse EMS services due to money issues. This might also play a role in where patients are taken as well, but more likely not since no matter what their insurance, etc is, they'll be transported to the hospital of their choice or depending on their condition, cardiac arrest-->closest hospital.

This article has been cited in 85 different papers according to Google scholar. Most of the works it has been cited in are about societies in distress and biological  citizenship. 

The author uses data from the chain of events and steps taken in response to the disaster in Fukushima along with recollection of the event. She analyzes and collects data about how previous situations similar to the one in Japan and involving nuclear fallout were handled and compared those reactions of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island to the reactions that followed Japan's disaster. She also analyzes responses that leaders had in those nations as well as the public and the new policies that arose from those different situations. She pooled data about the reactions of the public, leaders, law and policies and responses. She then uses that data to develop a plan for possible emergency responses as well as support her argument.

This prgram is only offered in-camous adn takes roughtl 2-6 terms  to cp,plete. earnign the degree requires 38 points. Menaing fuill time studnes can copelte the program in one academic year and a summer. The degree requirements include  five Core Courses in Narrative Medicine (22 points) and the Research Methodology course (4 points), which is required for all students who have not taken a graduate-level course in research methodology. The other 12 to 16 points may include any combination of additional Topics in Narrative Medicine courses, elective courses chosen from other departments, Independent Study and/or Capstone (two to four points).

This article utilized a study from the 90s that was performed in Baltimore. Statistics and studies performed in Haiti and Rwanda on the populations were also cited as arguments in the article. Publications and information provided by the PIH were also referenced and utilized to support the argument in the paper.

"I argue that the shift to gender-based violence as the exemplary humanitarian problem could not have happened without the prior move to medicalise gender-based violence, and render it a medical condition like all others."

"Approaching gender-based violence as a medical or health issue alters how violence is both approached and understood; that is, rather than understanding gender violence in the context of gendered relations of power, or as part of larger histories and expressions of inequality which are inseparable from histories of class or race or colonialism, this type of medicalisation transforms gender-based violence into an emergency illness, requiring immediate intervention"

"Rape in armed conflicts played a central role in the recognition of the category of gender-based violence, putting it onto the human rights radar screen, first in the former Yugoslavia and later in Rwanda; human rights approaches forced the international humanitarian law system to understand rape as a particular form of violence"

"The role of humanitarian organisations was growing exponentially during this time: humanitarian intervention became increasingly important on the international scene after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and humanitarian organisations took their place as autonomous interlocutors, as recognised by the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF in 1999"

The main point and argument of this film is to demonstrate the importance of public health education and protocols for both the public and those in charge or part of the government. The documentary focuses on the West African Ebola outbreak. Specifically, the struggles of Liberia are demonstrated and portrayed. The outbreak proved to be something that the government wasn't able to fully contain and protect citizens from. The fact that this outbreak occurred right after the end of a 14 year long civil war also proved to be an obstacle. The documentary shows the uneducated, misinformed lack of effort to contain, stop or cure the spread of disease or to even inform those that were infected. There was a complete lack of awareness on diseases in general, Ebola specifically and of protocols to enact when faced with this issue demonstrated by the government.

The argument is supported through the presentation of research and findings from two research workshops that were organized in 2014 and 2015, which brought together experts and researchers in the field who analyzed organizational efforts and the efforts addressed in terms of  violence effecting healthcare delivery. In depth interviews were also utilized to support the argument as well as the analysis of current facts, figures and data that is currently out there on this topic.

There is a lot of discussion about emergency response in this paper, mainly on a global level. The current protocols in place are analyzed in terms of threat response, but also preventative measure and preparedness that is needed. Global health is widely discussed and the lack of emergency response seen in terms of AIDS, flu and smallpox in world history. The need for improvements in the biodefense response is analyzed.