Resisting Public Health Measures, Then and Now
We owe the “rounders” an apology. Rounders were tuberculosis patients in the early 20th century who left hospitals against medical advice when they felt better and later wound up at another hospital. While “making the rounds,” they potentially infected others with their disease. Health officials routinely criticized these individuals for endangering the public. One of […]
Now is the time to trust public health experts like Anthony Fauci
The news that staying at home and other forms of social distancing may be flattening the curve of the deadly covid-19 outbreak has led to growing calls to rescind these public health edicts. For example, the top-ranking Republican in the Minnesota state legislature has announced his opposition to Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) order that citizens continue to […]
How Americans Learned to Condemn Drunk Driving
At a traffic safety conference in 1980, a Californian named Candy Lightner delivered her first public speech about a 13-year-old freckle-faced girl who had recently been killed by a drunk driver with several previous convictions. At the conclusion of her talk, she announced, “That girl was my daughter.” As Lightner later wrote, the press ran […]
Falling Asleep At The Wheel: A Confession
It turns out that I have something in common with Anson Williams, who played Potsie Weber on the long-running 1970s television show “Happy Days.” No, not that we were both nerds in high school, he fictional and I actual. Both Williams and I have fallen asleep while driving and narrowly averted a major crash. Nov. 5-12, […]