Remembering the Forgotten “Black Angels”
Many historians, including myself, have told the story of New York City’s Sea View Hospital, a tuberculosis sanatorium that operated from 1913 to 1961. But only now, with the publication of Maria Smilios’s new book, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis, is a crucial part of Sea View’s […]
Another Pragmatic Public Health Decision
There has been much criticism of the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to let Covid-infected people who are feeling better to stop quarantining after five days and simply wear a mask. Most of the concern stems from the fact that up to 31% of people in this category will actually still […]
Let’s Not Erase the History of Medical Ethics
I must admit that when contributing a chapter to a new book on the history of medical ethics, I was uncomfortable with what some of my coauthors believed was the only ethical way to write history: to serve social justice. That is, history not only needed to portray past injustices to vulnerable groups but also […]
The Scientific Good Guys: Let’s Save the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
The news that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. cancelled the July 10 meeting of the United States Preventive Services Task Force—and may seek to change its membership—was especially awful. Although some would disagree, the task force, which evaluates preventive health measures for inclusion in Obamacare and other health insurance plans, has […]
The Complicated Legacy of Betty Ford’s Breast Cancer Story
Betty Ford was determined not to keep her breast cancer a secret from the American public when she was diagnosed 50 years ago during her time as first lady. As she later remarked, “One day I appeared to be fine, and the next day I was in the hospital for a mastectomy. It made me […]
The Fraught History of the Pelvic Exam
When I was a medical student in the 1980s, the school hired “pelvic instructors” who taught us how to do exams in a painless and respectful way. They even allowed us to perform practice examinations on them. But at the same time, senior doctors urged me to perform pelvic exams on anesthetized women about to […]
Why Isn’t There Agreement on When Women Need to Start Getting Mammograms?
If, after reading the latest recommendation on breast cancer screening by the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), you feel like your head is spinning, that’s understandable. The task force’s newest advice, which gives a “B” grade in favor of routine mammograms for women in their 40s, reverses its 2016 statement saying the test […]
What the Public Might Learn from Kate Middleton, the Latest “Famous Patient”
There was a time when the last thing a celebrity would do would be to go public with details of a major illness. After all, it’s hard enough dealing with a grave diagnosis and often complicated treatments than to also announce them to the world. And health information has always been treated as confidential, shared […]
Remembering Betty Rollin, Who Told Her Breast Surgeon That Post-Operative Appearance Mattered
Women who had undergone disfiguring surgery for breast cancer, according to one surgeon in the 1970s, needed to “stick an old sock in their bra and get on with their lives.” It was this climate that Betty Rollin, then a television correspondent for NBC, entered when she was diagnosed with the disease in 1975. Rollin, […]
Arthur Ashe and AIDS: Did the Public Have the Right to Know His Diagnosis?
Do prominent public figures who are ill have some type of responsibility to reveal their diseases, or are they entitled to the same privacy as “ordinary” people? That question exploded into the public sphere in April 1992 when tennis star and humanitarian Arthur Ashe learned that a newspaper was about to make public his previously […]
Drunken Driving Is a Persistent Problem but There May Be a Technological Solution
Drunken driving control efforts have sputtered out in recent years with more than 11,000 preventable deaths now occurring annually. Over the past four decades, public health officials have largely focused on changing behaviors — asking people to not drink and drive. But now, there are new auto technologies that can prevent them from doing so. […]