“Mommy instincts:” that’s what Jenny McCarthy called them.1 You know, those innate feelings you get about your kids when they’re […]
Eyes of the Beholder: The Public Health Service Reports on Trachoma in White Appalachia and Indian Country
In 1912, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) set out to survey trachoma rates among two populations: Appalachian Whites […]
The Anti-Vaccine Movement, Bad Science, and the Rise of Fake News
Fake news was one of the biggest news stories following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. From climate change to abortion, […]
We Need to Talk About Chikungunya
My friend from Rio de Janeiro got chikungunya virus in April. First she came down with a high fever. Soon […]
The New Rubella: Zika and What it Means for Abortion Rights
Historians, journalists, and public health officials have begun to call Zika the new rubella (German measles). When a pregnant woman […]
Of Rifles and Responsibility: How Can We Speak to Each Other Across the Gun Control Divide?
As a kid, I loved shooting a rifle with my uncle, out back at my grandmother’s farmhouse. My dad and […]
Public Health and the Dead at Johnstown
In the twenty-four hour news cycle we live in, we frequently are treated to instantaneous images of disasters unfolding around […]
Tuning In for Public Health: The Promise of Televised Health Education in 1950s America
During a recent well-child check up, the nurse asked how much television my son watched. Although not common a generation […]
Positively Negative: Love, Pregnancy, and Science’s Surprising Victory over HIV
By Lara Freidenfelds
What would you do if you desperately wanted to have a baby, and your spouse had HIV? In the mid-1990s, the introduction of highly-effective HIV drug regimens turned HIV from a death sentence into a chronic condition. People with HIV and their life partners could begin to imagine creating families and living to see their children grow up. But it was not until 2014 that researchers and policy-makers approved a prophylactic regimen that effectively protects against HIV-transmission even without condom use. (It still is not officially condoned for family-building purposes, but some physicians are willing to prescribe it for that purpose.) For almost two decades, HIV-discordant couples faced a special kind of infertility: it was childlessness caused by the threat of illness, by fear, and by a traumatized, cautious public health and medical community that could not move beyond its initial message, that “only condoms prevent HIV transmission.”
A new e-book, Positively Negative: Love, Pregnancy, and Science’s Surprising Victory over HIV, takes us into the lives of two couples who lived this history.
Paranoia on the Border: Immigration and Public Health
Like others, I find the growing humanitarian crisis in Texas deeply troubling. The number of minors making this dangerous journey […]