Featured Speakers
The Politics of Pandemics: Why The 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia is Relevant Today
Michael Yudell, PhD, MPH
Professor and Chair
Department of Community Health and Prevention
Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University
Professor and Chair
Department of Community Health and Prevention
Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University
Date Given: Monday, September 21, 2020
Location: Online via Zoom
This talk explores the history and impact of the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, how that history is remembered today, and the continued relevance of that history to contemporary public health. Using clips from the speaker's recent WHYY Yellow Fever 1793 Walking tour podcast, this talk also draws parallels to the current COVID-19 pandemic, examining how politics and ideology remain a dangerous threat to the public's health.
Michael Yudell is a public health historian and ethicist. He completed his PhD and MPH in Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Yudell is the author of several books, including most recently Race Unmasked: Biology and Race in the 20th Century (Columbia University Press, 2014), winner of the 2016 Arthur J. Viseltear Award from the American Public Health Association. Along with Dr. Samuel K. Roberts, Yudell edits the Columbia University Press Series Race, Inequality, and Health. He also conducts research on autism and ethics, including currently a National Science Foundation project examining the ethics of community-engaged autism research. Yudell is writing A Way of Being Human, a history of autism spectrum disorders (Columbia University Press, forthcoming). Finally, Yudell is Chair of the Pennsylvania Secretary of Health’s Newborn Screening and Follow-up Technical Advisory Board. On a lighter note, Yudell performs monthly at the Philadelphia Improv Theater in the long-running show Study Hall.
Structural Racism and Epidemic Disease in USian History: From Yellow Fever to COVID-19
Daniel S. Goldberg, J.D., Ph.D
Core Faculty, Center for Bioethics and Humanities
Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Colorado University School of Medicine
Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Colorado University School of Public Health
Core Faculty, Center for Bioethics and Humanities
Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Colorado University School of Medicine
Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Colorado University School of Public Health
Date Given: Thursday, September 24, 2020
Location: Online via Zoom
This talk addresses the broad history of stigma and racism in contexts of epidemic disease in USian (United States'ian) history. While stigma and infectious disease in general are connected at a deep level that extends back from millennia, there is no question that specific forms of racism mark USian history from the beginning. Many scholars have pointed out how the racism that plagued Philadelphia in 1793 affected the devastating yellow fever epidemic of the time. This talk will explain the structural features of such racism and will extend the analysis to several other epidemics in USian history. The talk will conclude by linking the historical analysis to discussion of law and policy interventions that can be used to reduce the stigma and racism currently shaping the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.
Daniel S. Goldberg is trained as an attorney, a historian of medicine, and a public health ethicist. His current research agenda in law, policy, and bioethics focuses on the social determinants of health, public health policy and chronic illness, health inequities and stigma. In addition, he maintains an active research program in the history of medicine, and focuses primarily on two topics in 19th century America: the history of medical imaging (especially X-rays) and the history of pain without lesion. His doctoral dissertation addressed the undertreatment of pain in the U.S., and he has been actively writing, teaching, and speaking on the subject of chronic pain since 2000.
History, Disparities, and the Impact of COVID-19 on North Philadelphia
Cornelius D. Pitts, PharmD
Medical Director of Meriam Medical Clinic
Adjunct Instructor, Center of Urban Bioethics, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Medical Director of Meriam Medical Clinic
Adjunct Instructor, Center of Urban Bioethics, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Brandon Brown
Trauma Specialist, Center for Urban Bioethics, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Trauma Specialist, Center for Urban Bioethics, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Nora L. Jones, PhD
Associate Professor, Bioethics
Associate Director, Center for Urban Bioethics
Associate Professor, Bioethics
Associate Director, Center for Urban Bioethics
Date Given: Thursday, September 24, 2020
Location: Online via Zoom
Join us for a discussion on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted North Philadelphia. Community leaders Dr. Neil Pitts and Mr. Brandon Brown will have a conversation facilitated by Dr. Nora Jones, Associate Director of the Center for Urban Bioethics. We will begin with a discussion of some of the new challenges the pandemic has brought, from switching to online learning in communities without universal internet access to maintaining community support networks in light of the closing of local churches. Panelists will then connect contemporary challenges to historical context and discuss how a full understanding of COVID-19 -- now and moving forward -- requires attention to the issue of trust between the African American community and the medical establishment. The conversation will end with examples of the novel ways the North Philadelphia community has come together to creatively meet the challenges of COVID-19 and suggest trust-building opportunities for academic and medical institutions.
Fast Medicine and Fallibility: Philosophical Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Miriam Solomon, PhD
Professor and Interim Chair
Philosophy Department
Temple University
Professor and Interim Chair
Philosophy Department
Temple University
Date Given: Friday, September 25, 2020
Location: Online via Zoom
Medical practice usually develops slowly, moving from basic research through three stages of clinical trials to guidelines, outcome evaluations, and revised guidelines. With COVID-19, researchers are being asked to speed up the process as much as possible in order to stem the pandemic. In the meantime, clinicians are working with interim guidelines, and often need to rely on their own clinical judgement to make treatment decisions. This talk will describe the challenges of such “fast medicine.” The current situation will be compared with the HIV epidemic, discussing Steve Epstein’s Impure Science (University of California Press, 1996) account of how ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) persuaded the scientific community to reconfigure clinical trials of antiviral treatments to address urgent needs. Epistemic humility—a nuanced understanding of our fallibility—is an attitude that is especially helpful in these circumstances.
Miriam Solomon is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University and the author of Social Empiricism (MIT, 2001) and Making Medical Knowledge (Oxford, 2015). She works in the areas of philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of psychiatry, history of science, epistemology, gender and science, and biomedical ethics.