Nancy Leys Stepan
One of the strange things about eradication is how it repeatedly arises, phoenix-like, from its setbacks.
Fred Lowe Soper paradoxically embraced the cause of disease eradication in the 1930s, just as the Rockefeller Foundation abandoned the project. Smallpox eradication was re-born in 1967, just before malaria eradication was given up by WHO. Polio eradication was launched in 1988, just when many public health experts rejected eradication altogether, in favor of concentrating on primary health care.
What explains the continued appeal of eradication, despite the rarity of success?
Editor: Erind Pajo
January 2, 2012
20111116-stepan-nancy-on-eradication-1-1
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Nancy Leys Stepan
Nancy Leys Stepan started her working life as a science journalist, then qualified as a historian of science and medicine. She is Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University, and has previously taught at Yale, Oxford, and the Central European University. Besides Eradication, featured on Rorotoko, her books include “The Hour of Eugenics” (co-winner of the Berkshire Prize), Picturing Tropical Nature, The Idea of Race in Science.
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Disease eradication should be a rare exception in international health, not a standing ambition.
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