Report On The Activity Of The Committee On Energy And Commerce For The 103 D Congress 1 St Session

Author : Constance A. Nathanson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197682480
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Download or read book The Social Production of Crisis written by Constance A. Nathanson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-24 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When does epidemic disease disrupt society to the point where it becomes a political crisis? In the early 1980s, almost unnoticed in the larger drama that was AIDS, over half of hemophiliacs and a large number of blood transfusion recipients were infected with toxic blood contaminated with HIV. The French public's "discovery" of this catastrophe in the early 1990s created a transformative political crisis; this same discovery in the United States went largely unnoticed. In The Social Production of Crisis, Constance A. Nathanson and Henri Bergeron focus on a profoundly troubling story to present a detailed case comparative analysis not only of the catastrophe itself and its multiple retrospective interpretations but also of its intimate connection to the history and organization of blood as a consumer product in each country. They draw on secondary sources, archival research, and interviews with key players to provide a historical, political, and social reconstruction of the HIV contamination of the blood supply to answer the question of how and why disease morphed into crisis in France and not in the United States. They also raise questions about the curious immunity to human suffering as a policy engine in the United States, about the often reiterated weakness of civil society in France, and about theorizing alternative epidemic trajectories. Investigating a series of morally shocking events, this book develops a sociological theory of how political crises are socially produced and raises questions about disease policy and politics in the US and France.