The epidemiological factor: A genealogy of the link between medicine and politics

Abstract

From the beginning of our civilization, the existence of infectious and contagious diseases required a search for solutions for both an individual and medical-health problem, and political interventions that involve a territory and population that must be managed. In this respect, epidemiology constitutes a strategic dimension in analysing the complex relationships established between scientific conduct and the political management of a territory. With this focus, we will provide a short historic genealogy of the links established between medicine and politics in European societies since the 18th century. From this, we should be able to see a movement from the concepts of healthiness/unhealthiness common to the ‘public hygiene’ managed by the 19th-century nation-state, towards the imperative of ‘public health’ operating with the ‘global health’ concept promoted by our current global institutions.

Social pathologies and urban pathogenicity: Moving towards better pandemic futures

“…Should we embrace this framework, we would also recognise that there is no justification for public health to address microbes but not economic and political structures that transform those into pathogens. As Maureira et al (2018) noted, epidemiology and public health are historically situated in a grey area between science and politics, hence the efforts to render these two apolitical are counter-productive to their purposes.…”

A breach in the social contract: Limited participation and limited evidence in COVID‐19 responses

“…This event is an important reminder that even the most technical and 'data-driven' scientific claims, whether made by laboratory sciences, public health or medicine, 31,32 once in the public sphere as public policy become amenable to public interpretation, contextualization and contestation by multiple social actors. 33 In other words, public health, together with medicine and science itself, are not value neutral, but profoundly social and political in terms of their relevance and their effects [33][34][35][36] -as recognized long ago by Rudolf Virchow. 37 To be sure, the tensions that arose in light of strict measures underscore the ways in which 'science', emerging and ever-expanding evidentiary sources, social values and political expedience have intermingled in the policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis.…”

“…This event is an important reminder that even the most technical and ‘data‐driven’ scientific claims, whether made by laboratory sciences, public health or medicine, 31 , 32 once in the public sphere as public policy become amenable to public interpretation, contextualization and contestation by multiple social actors. 33 In other words, public health, together with medicine and science itself, are not value neutral, but profoundly social and political in terms of their relevance and their effects 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 —as recognized long ago by Rudolf Virchow. 37 …”

Pandemic Politics in Eurasia: Roadmap for a New Research Subfield

“…In an ostensible reversal of the globalization logic, the pandemic crisis is re-signifying all big spaces as sources of imminent danger, thus pushing the society into the biopolitics of small spaces that are expected to be controlled and monitored much better than big crossborder expanses. This trend might be conceptualized as biosecurity (Maureira and Tirado 2018), with new disciplinary practices and regimes of control and regulation over human bodies and their mobilities (Cameron 2007).…”