Thesis ID: CBB001561895

The Tainted Gift: A Comparative Study of the Culture and Politics of the Contamination of the Blood Supply with the AIDS Virus in France and the United States (2005)

unapi

Saul, Jessie Elizabeth (Author)


Cornell University
Hilgartner, Stephen


Publication Date: 2005
Edition Details: Advisor: Hilgartner, Stephen
Physical Details: 333 pp.
Language: English

This project is an examination of the ways that the events leading up to the contamination were framed in different ways, resulting in divergent trajectories of scientific investigation, political problem solving, policy change, moral judgments, and responses to legal claims. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, blood supplies around the world became infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Thousands of people contracted the virus through their use of blood and blood products, primarily people with hemophilia and recipients of blood transfusions. The contamination, and the role of government officials in the contamination, evolved into a national scandal in France, culminating in the trial and conviction of four government and health officials, the payment of both people with hemophilia and transfusion recipients who had contracted HIV with government funds, and a change in the constitution that allowed the former Prime Minister, Minister of Health, and Minister of Social Affairs to be tried in court for actions they committed while in office. Public framing of the contamination in the United States was that of a public health tragedy. In conducting my research, I collected and analyzed print and television media coverage of the AIDS crisis, and the resulting political crisis surrounding the government's role in the contamination of the blood supply several years later. In addition, I conducted interviews with approximately 100 people with hemophilia, hemophilia organization leaders, regulatory agencies, legislators, journalists, lawyers, and scientists. To these primary materials I added textual resources such as legislative hearings, bills, acts and laws, personal correspondence, memoirs, hemophilia organization newsletters, affidavits, and courtroom testimony. This project concludes that framing processes depend on cultural values more so than institutional and political structures. In France the value was solidarity, and in the United States the value was individualism. In addition, the way events are framed influences the distribution of responsibility and the types of solutions that will be perceived as appropriate by the public. Finally, because framing involves social norms and is a dynamic process, an analysis of framing processes is an effective way to study social change and the strengthening of social norms.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 66/01 (2005): 368. UMI pub. no. 3162885.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561895/

Similar Citations

Book Richard Andrew McKay; (2017)
Patient Zero and the Making of the Aids Epidemic (/isis/citation/CBB093085222/)

Article Stein, Claudia; Cooter, Roger; (2011)
Visual Objects and Universal Meanings: AIDS Posters and the Politics of Globalisation and History (/isis/citation/CBB001230153/)

Thesis Brier, Jennifer M.; (2002)
Infectious Ideas: AIDS and Conservatism in America, 1980--1992 (/isis/citation/CBB001562496/)

Article King, Nicholas B.; (2004)
The Scale Politics of Emerging Diseases (/isis/citation/CBB000750320/)

Book Anna Kirkland; (2016)
Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury (/isis/citation/CBB053136475/)

Book Aberth, John; (2011)
Plagues in World History (/isis/citation/CBB001033389/)

Chapter Giovanni Silvano; (2020)
Philip Pinel tra Francia e America nell’Ottocento (/isis/citation/CBB972746471/)

Article Muncy, Robyn; (2009)
Coal-Fired Reforms: Social Citizenship, Dissident Miners, and the Great Society (/isis/citation/CBB001030365/)

Book K. Pienaar; (2016)
Politics in the Making of HIV/AIDS in South Africa (/isis/citation/CBB593288041/)

Book Brier, Jennifer; (2009)
Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis (/isis/citation/CBB001200310/)

Book Gostin, Lawrence O.; (2004)
The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice, and Unfulfilled Expectations (/isis/citation/CBB000630184/)

Book Marques, Maria Cristina; (2003)
A história de uma epidemia moderna: a emergência política da Aids-HIV no Brasil (/isis/citation/CBB000640215/)

Book Inrig, Stephen; (2011)
North Carolina and the Problem of AIDS: Advocacy, Politics, and Race in the South (/isis/citation/CBB001550478/)

Book Lisa Diedrich; (2016)
Indirect Action: Schizophrenia, Epilepsy, AIDS, and the Course of Health Activism (/isis/citation/CBB852074193/)

Book Oppenheimer, Gerald M.; Bayer, Ronald; (2007)
Shattered Dreams? An Oral History of the South African AIDS Epidemic (/isis/citation/CBB000930540/)

Book Baldwin, Peter; (2005)
Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World Faces AIDS (/isis/citation/CBB000550817/)

Authors & Contributors
Brier, Jennifer M.
Padamsee, Tasleem J.
Silvano, Giovanni
Pienaar, Kinar
Diedrich, Lisa
Kirkland, Anna Rutherford
Concepts
Medicine and politics
AIDS (disease); HIV / AIDS
Public health
Medicine
Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV)
Disease and diseases
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
Early modern
Modern
Medieval
20th century
Places
United States
South Africa
Canada
Brazil
New York City (New York, U.S.)
North America
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment