LECTURE

DATE LECTURER2/26/2013 Aaron Pascal Mauck MA, PhD

Internationalism and Health

Science, Medicine and Transnationalism

I. Course Business

II. Political Foundations of Transnational Science

III.Transnational Health in Europe

IV.Transnational Health in the Americas

Political Foundations of Transnational ScienceTransnationalism has its Twentieth Century origins in Progressivism

The idea of a transnational science suggests that scientists and science operate outside national borders, and that the benefits of science are universally shared

In efforts to control global disease, transnationalism signals a shiftfrom the nineteenth century protection of national borders through quarantine and surveillance to a recognition that many diseases are borderless.

Progressivism and tropical medicineHave much in common:

- Faith in Science- Creating new kinds of expertise- Importance of rational administration- Greater role for governments- Universality of problems and solutions

Transnationalism in Europe: LNHO

Scientific enthusiasm for transnationalismwas tempered by political realities.

Conservative political turn after 1918 In many countries signals end of Progressive politics- return of market-drivenand nation-centered policies.

International cooperation remains limitedDespite LON: Isolationism in US and Tensions between France and Germany

Control of VD constitutes a collective goal in the twenties and thirties, but International cooperation in standard-setting remains due to tensions between France & Germany & the North America & Europe

Emergence of competing diagnostic standards: Wassermann test in Europe (created 1906) and Kahn Test in North America (created in 1925)

Transnationalism in Europe: Pasteur Institutes I

1888: First Institute is established in ParisWith the goal of spreading knowledge about the control and treatment of infectiousdisease through Germ Theory

Initial institutional focus on rabies inoculation,smallpox vaccination, and diphtheria antitoxin.Spread of institutes to other countries reflectedThe spread of expertise in treating thesediseases

By 1914, Pasteur Institutes had spread to several countries, but had different goals and lacked a coherent vision of science, save for a commitment to collaboration and possibly an affinity for French Science

Administering Rabies Inoculation

Transnationalism in Europe: Pasteur Institutes II

After 1918, the Paris Pasteur Institute reassertscontrol over the other institutes, promoting“scientific imperialism” rooted in a French visionof science

Ban on German Science & scientists upheld byThe Pasteur Institutes

1921-1926 attempt at collaboration betweenThe Institute and the RF fails largely due toThe unwillingness of the institute to share controlor compromise on its vision

“If French reigns over boundless regions, if epidemics are prevented or thwarted,if sanitary reforms can be undertaken, cities built up, harbors opened to trade, If Europeans can live safely in hostile Africa or the Far East, if morbidity and Mortality decrease in a striking way for native populations, all these transformationsMust be attributed to colonial medicine.” Louis-Pasteur Vallery-Radot, 1938

Vallery-Radot

Transnationalism in the Americas: The Rockefeller Foundation

The RF initially focuses on education, institutional development, and diseaseEradication. Disease eradication serves the triple goal of improved health, development, and political rationalization

The RF chooses eradication campaigns based on the viability of the targets:Hookworm, Yellow Fever, and Malaria all thought to be well-understoodAnd easily controlled

Eradication efforts predicated on an alignment of goals between the RF and National governments:

- Tool for administrative centralization- Tool for nation-building- Tool for local and international economic development- Tool for national & RF propaganda

Transnationalism in the Americas: Hookworm in MexicoVeracruz region becomes site of hookworm Eradication efforts throughout the 20s & 30s

Work predicated on alignment of RF goal of Illustrating Efficacy of eradication and National goals of Quelling political unrest in the region by providingKey services, and entrenching state power

Initial focus on treatment and limited concern for Infrastructure reflects immediate political realities.As political unrest dissipates in the 30s, emphasis Shifts to infrastructure and education

The explicit goal of Americanization emerges at the RF in part through contact withnon-democratic regimes, where public health measures can serve as a toolFor the promotion of pro-democratic ideology

While Hookworm initially serves as a demonstration tool for what the RF might do In the future for other diseases , it eventually becomes explanation for poor health and poverty in the Region.

RF Latrine Construction Project

Summary

The Interwar Years (1919-1938) witnessed the rise of new transnational Scientific aspirations, rooted in the Progressive political project, and linked toGoals like economic development and the promotion of a perpetual peace.

In the areas of disease research and eradication, transnational projects entailed coordination between private foundations (Pasteur Institute,

Rockefeller Foundation) and national governments.

Transnational science was often employed in the service of national goals: Rationalization of state administration, entrenchment of state power,

Encouragement of state-supported industries.

Transnational science was also subject to international pressures:Competition between different models of scientific research or public health

Intervention, disagreements between old enemy states

Thus, transnational science remained more a goal than a reality as it pertainedto the universally shared goals of disease control and eradication