★ 03/14/2022
“Effective disease control is a matter not just of containing (or better yet, killing) pathogens but also of implementing effective laws and governance,” according to this incisive history of public health crises in the U.S. from the 1770s to today. Price (Judge Richard S. Arnold), a professor of law and global health at Emory University, contends that conflicts between federal, state, and local governments and America’s “deep culture of individual rights and constitutional values” have often hindered efforts to stamp out epidemics. She examines how vaccine distribution programs failed to reach high-risk populations during the 1968 “Hong Kong flu” outbreak and describes resistance to face mask laws during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Analyses of smallpox, yellow fever, AIDS/HIV, and other disease outbreaks also reveal a history of racial discrimination in care and inoculation, as well as a tendency of voters and elected leaders to relax once a crisis has passed and fail to pass laws that could help prevent the next one. Turning to the Covid-19 pandemic, Price examines the public health impact of social media misinformation and tensions between Democratic governors and the Trump administration. Gripping prose and lucid analysis make this an essential study of what needs to change before the next epidemic. (May)
An authoritative history of America’s flawed responses to epidemics . . . A vigorous argument for unified public health measures.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“Gripping prose and lucid analysis make this an essential study of what needs to change before the next epidemic.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Short, readable, and well documented . . . [Price] clearly and ably lays out a timetable of disease and the legal and social response to it.”
—Booklist
“A masterful book for our times, a must-read for understanding how pandemics shape law, government, and society. Price takes us on a journey through history to offer vital lessons for the future.”
—Lawrence O. Gostin, University Professor and director of the WHO Center on Global Health Law, Georgetown University
“In Plagues in the Nation, Polly Price reminds us that epidemics have always represented crises, not merely in public health but in law and governance as well. This timely and skillful account of governmental responses to epidemics in US history should be required reading for anyone interested in developing a more effective and credible response to our current crisis, and the inevitable crises to come.”
—Joseph Crespino, author of Atticus Finch: The Biography
“In this timely and far-reaching book, Polly Price has skillfully examined the history of contagious diseases in the United States, from smallpox in the colonial era to the COVID pandemic. It should appeal to anyone seeking to understand our often muddled national response to public health crises.”
—James W. Ely Jr., author of The Contract Clause: A Constitutional History
“Among the many lessons Americans will draw from the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the most essential will concern the workings of our legal and constitutional systems. But as Polly Price explains in this brisk, engaging, and even moving account of how our local, state, and national governments have responded to massive crises of public health over the course of our history, these lessons are not new. A must-read for every concerned citizen and legislator!”
—Jack N. Rakove, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution
“All epidemics are different, but much can be learned from understanding the past performance of government and the impact and limits of legally based policies. Plagues in the Nation explores these issues during past and present epidemics in the United States and provides lessons for government and citizens to face the future.”
—James W. Curran, dean, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
“Polly Price provides an insightful and riveting account of America’s decentralized and often ineffective response to epidemics past and present. Her meticulously researched and beautifully written history is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the historical and legal roots of the challenges we’ve faced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
—Wendy E. Parmet, author of The Health of Newcomers and Populations, Public Health, and the Law
“Plagues in the Nation is essential reading if we are to understand the challenges posed by the current COVID pandemic and pandemics to come. A distinguished scholar of law and government, as well as an expert on issues of public health, Polly Price is also a first-rate historian whose description of earlier epidemics and pandemics shows the fundamental flaws in our decentralized public health system and the threat posed by our loss of trust in governmental and scientific institutions.”
—Dan T. Carter, author of Scottsboro and The Politics of Rage
“Polly Price’s book provides a comprehensive historical account of America’s encounters with epidemics and offers important correctives to effectively address them in the future.”
—Paula Kocher Barnes, former deputy associate general counsel, HHS (general counsel to CDC)
★ 2022-02-02
A pointed study of how divisiveness and conflict undermine the nation’s response to disease.
Law professor and legal historian Price offers an authoritative history of America’s flawed responses to epidemics. “Not only does the United States have the most fragmented public health system in the world,” she writes, “but most states retain antiquated public health laws that do not serve us well.” Due to poorly constructed laws and underfunded health agencies, the U.S. responds to pandemics “not as one nation, but as fifty-five smaller nations—the states, territories, and commonwealths that politically subdivide the country.” Responsibility for tuberculosis control, for example, “is divided among 2,684 state, local, and tribal health departments.” Price recounts waves of epidemics in the nation’s early years, when there was no treatment except to isolate the ill. With the discovery of a vaccine for smallpox, local, state, and federal authorities mandated vaccination, although not without controversy. Often, citizens looked for groups to blame, including immigrants, Asians, Mexicans, or even people from other states. In response to yellow fever, “shotgun quarantines” were enforced by militias or deputized volunteers. In 1900, an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco led to the quarantine of the city’s entire Chinatown—a strategy struck down by a federal judge. The rollout of vaccines for Covid-19 echoes what occurred with the vaccine for polio in the 1950s. “Not only was there no patent on the vaccine but there was no plan in place to oversee or coordinate its distribution,” writes Price. “America’s first nationwide vaccination effort was chaotic and politically divisive, as demand for the vaccine outpaced supply.” The author effectively shows how every epidemic has generated tensions about which level of government has the authority to make public health decisions. She recommends a stronger federal role in responding to pandemics, including coordination of the nation’s primary health agencies and nationally funded coverage of the costs of testing and treatment.
A vigorous argument for unified public health measures.
