epidemic - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Nurses on the Inside: Stories of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in NYC

By Scott J. Pearson | November 25, 2022November 25, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Much has changed since HIV/AIDS first started spreading widely in America. Fortunately, we now have better drugs to treat HIV infections. The healthcare system focuses on prevention through PrEP. America is more accepting of homosexuality, though more progress can always be made. Some things remain similar, though. Preventative vaccines are still a hoped-for but not realized dream. The stigma of a diagnosis still exists, but not nearly as badly as it did in the 1980s…

Healthcare History HIV/AIDS

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, & the AIDS Epidemic

By Scott J. Pearson | August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

“Those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.” “The primary problems we now face are not scientific problems but social problems involving science.” Such statements certainly provide an impetus to read this classic about the early history of AIDS in America. Though this book is over thirty years old, its meticulous research still communicates how human nature often denies diseased persons respect, compassion, and the resources necessary to recover. Such was certainly true in…

Healthcare History Science

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

By Scott J. Pearson | October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

This book, over a decade old, tells the history of one of London’s worst cholera epidemics. It also tells of how John Snow and Henry Whitehead found the cause for the epidemic and transformed how cities managed cholera epidemics and epidemics in general. Knowledge, reason, and data triumphed over ignorance. In his telling, Johnson describes a variety of topics in depth – a telling that informs and inspires modern readers. During the early Victorian era,…