PAN(DEM)IC NOW!

The Making of a Germ Panic, Then and Now

Tomes argues that there were two distinct periods of germ panic in the 20th Century

1900-1940

Before antibiotics but after bacteriological awareness and the abandonment of the miasma theory of disease

A “print revolution” that increases awareness

Public health campaigns aimed at hygienic practices

Diseases like flu, tuberculosis as targets of these campaigns

Spanish Flu Pandemic 1918-19

More people died of flu than died in fighting in WWI

Estimated over 100 million people died

Advertising practices aimed at increasingly germ-aware public

Products like Lysol Practices and

procedures of hygiene in the home

Problematization of domestic space

Antibiotics

Developed during and after WWI by Sir Alexander Fleming

Connected to the treatment of infections in military hospitals

Many died from infections, not from wounds

Antibiotics not widely available until 1942

The Magic Bullet

Idea that all infections would be swiftly dealt with by antibiotics

Overuse – for ailments where not needed, in animals

Misuse – prescribed for viral infections which are not affected by antibiotics

1985 - Now

Emergence of HIV/AIDS in early 1980s

Arrogance connected to magic bullet and idea that diseases like small pox or polio could be wiped out

Hygienic Practices

Food handling practices

BSE or mad-cow disease

Tensions between public health and private hygiene

Emerging Infectious Diseases HIV/AIDS Ebola Hanta More recently,

H5N1, H1N1, and SARS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGZ3K7Q0j9U

Cultural Imaginings of Pandemics Films like Contagion

(2011), 12 Monkeys (1995) and Outbreak (1995)

Made-for-TV movies like Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1naQSJWwbk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwNMGdWyjcc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BswcvmjbreE

Superbugs!

MRSA (methicilin-resistant stapholococus aureus)

c difficile Multi-drug resistance

means illnesses that were once treatable are becoming harder to treat

Eg. Tuberculosis, salmonella, pneumonia

New Products for a New Germ Panic

Lysol http://www.youtub

e.com/watch?v=qJh1Q4YgSHE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxDkq3rjXPo&feature=related