08 Aug ICCG part 2

I’ve been working on my paper pretty much non-stop for a week now and i’m beginning to realize that i’m completely overwhelmed by all of the possibilities of directions i can take:

1. there is of course the sheer irony of the fact that Haiti has been blamed for all manner of infections (slave revolts to AIDS)
2. cholera was one of the excuses for forced occupation by the US  for sanitation programs (see Warwick, Colonial pathologies and others) across the globe – securitization at its best
3. that the Haitian people have never requested the occupation – that the US occupation in 2010 was at the behest of Haitian elite and business owners to protect their factories, not the Haitian people, themselves
4. that vaccinations for 500,000 against cholera were available but that it wasn’t until six months later that the mathematical epidemiological studies were completed showing the efficacy of using the reactive oral vaccines were publicly shared
5. that Boyer was responsible for keeping cholera rom infecting the Haitian portion of Hispanola through public health measures
6. that MINUSTAH blamed the protests on political motivations stemming from the upcoming elections in November (this takes the cake)
7. that P-A-P has consistently had the lowest rate of death because of humanitarian intervention
8. that the Artibonite region was slated for sanitation projects that were interrupted due to the sanctions placed on Haiti during Aristide’s reign by the US (this, i think, is the worst of all the ironies!)

how do i boil down 40 years of history leading up to this epidemic in a 15 minute talk? and how do i do it without poo-pooing all over one of my academic heroes? No, the molecularization of health and risk is no longer simply a question for the global north…it now is very much an issue for the global south..