Martin Halliwell. American Health Crisis: One Hundred Years of Panic, Planning, and Politics.

Abstract

In 1962, historian Charles Rosenberg published his groundbreaking book The Cholera Years, a social history of the disease that plagued New York City throughout the nineteenth century. By examining outbreaks in 1832, 1849, and 1866, Rosenberg exposes a cycle of apathy, fear, and infighting among city officials, businessmen, and physicians. The politics of public health, Rosenberg concludes, often impeded effective responses to the epidemics. In American Health Crisis: 100 Years of Panic, Planning, and Politics, historian Martin Halliwell comes to a similar conclusion about the federal government’s responses to public health crises throughout the twentieth century (and beyond). Using eighteen case studies of natural and human-made disasters in the United States, Halliwell traces a frustratingly familiar pattern of missteps and political inertia. The structure of American Health Crisis is noteworthy. By focusing on six themes—disaster, poverty, pollution, virus, care, and drugs—Halliwell makes visible the scope and consequences of the perennial issues that affect public health efforts during times of crisis. Under the theme of “virus” for example, he tracks federal responses to the 1918 flu, polio, and HIV/AIDS epidemics to show how the lack of early and effective health communication has played a substantial role in exacerbating epidemics in the United States. Similarly, in chapter 6, Halliwell explores three federal anti-drug campaigns—the Nixon administration’s promotion of methadone to combat heroin addiction, Congressional responses to the “valium crisis” of the late 1970s, and the current opioid epidemic—to demonstrate how government responses to addiction often conflate medical treatment with punitive action, blurring the line between patient and criminal.