“Virgin-Soil Epidemics” Covers a Multitude of Sins

BY MIKE MAGEE Epidemics don’t appear in isolation of geography, social status, race or economics. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation article, the authors reviewed case numbers and death rates organized by race/ethnicity. It will come as no surprise that the most vulnerable populations death rate is nearly three times greater than the least vulnerable. But what may surprise you is that the population at greatest risk was neither self-identified as Black or Hispanic, but Native American. Sadly, this is not a new story, but in the analogs of American history, it has been papered over by a partially true, but incomplete, narrative. That storyline was largely popularized by the book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Published in 1997, author Jared Diamond explained that European colonists, arriving in the Caribbean islands in the late 15th century, carried with them a variety of diseases like smallpox and measles, and transmitted them to indigenous people that had no prior exposure to these deadly microbes. Two years ago, University of Oregon Professor of History Jeffrey Ostler recently challenged the “virgin-soil” hypothesis in an article in The Atlantic. In his words, “Although the virgin-soil-epidemic hypothesis may have been well-intentioned, its focus on the brief, if horrific, a moment of initial contact consigns disease safely to the distant past and provides colonizers with an alibi. Indigenous communities are fighting more than a virus.” Studen...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Policy Public Health Jeffrey Ostler Mike Magee Native Americans Virgin-Soil Epidemic Source Type: blogs