American biomedicine

    It is argued in this course that American biomedicine is not a values-free scientific application, but is rather embedded in an individualistic and capitalist culture, has institutionalized, culturally patterned purposes in addition to the health of patients, and that it uses definitions of health and of illness that are defined by culture not by culture-free human biology. The cultural influences on biomedical science and on health care are brought into sharp relief in epidemics or pandemics when crises demand effective collective responses. Our health and health care in these situations are affected by the goals or purposes and the cultures of hospitals, bio-medical research and government agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, the media and politics, as well as widespread American values and attitudes. USING examples from at least 3 chapters in THE PANDEMIC CENTURY and your personal knowledge of the COVID year provide a thoughtful discussion of how these culturally shaped institutions have in turn shaped the collective responses to pandemics in the US. And where relevant comment specifically on the role of social stratification/ “structural violence” in shaping the courses of the outbreaks you have chosen. TEXTS USED -Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology, 3rd edition, Peter J. Brown and Svea Closser, Routledge 2016 ISBN 978-1-62958-291-7 paperback -Exploring Medical Anthropology, 4th edition, Donald Joralemon, Routledge 2017, ISBN 978-1-138-20186-6 paperback The Pandemic Century, Mark Honigsbaum, WW Norton, 2019, ISBN9780393254754