The Making of a Germ Panic, Then and Now  Tomes argues that there were two distinct periods of germ panic in the 20 th Century

 Before antibiotics but after bacteriological awareness and the abandonment of the miasma theory of disease  A “print revolution” that increases awareness

 Public health campaigns aimed at hygienic practices  Diseases like flu, tuberculosis as targets of these campaigns  Spanish Flu Pandemic  More people died of flu than died in fighting in WWI  Estimated over 100 million people died

 Advertising practices aimed at increasingly germ-aware public  Products like Lysol  Practices and procedures of hygiene in the home  Problematization of domestic space

Antibiotics  Developed during and after WWI by Sir Alexander Fleming  Connected to the treatment of infections in military hospitals  Many died from infections, not from wounds  Antibiotics not widely available until 1942

The Magic Bullet  Idea that all infections would be swiftly dealt with by antibiotics  Overuse – for ailments where not needed, in animals  Misuse – prescribed for viral infections which are not affected by antibiotics

Now  Emergence of HIV/AIDS in early 1980s  Arrogance connected to magic bullet and idea that diseases like small pox or polio could be wiped out

Hygienic Practices  Food handling practices  BSE or mad-cow disease  Tensions between public health and private hygiene

Emerging Infectious Diseases  HIV/AIDS  Ebola  Hanta  More recently, H5N1, H1N1, and SARS  m/watch?v=rGZ3K7Q0j 9U m/watch?v=rGZ3K7Q0j 9U

Cultural Imaginings of Pandemics  Films like Contagion (2011), 12 Monkeys (1995) and Outbreak (1995)  Made-for-TV movies like Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America  atch?v=j1naQSJWwbk atch?v=j1naQSJWwbk  atch?v=UwNMGdWyjcc atch?v=UwNMGdWyjcc  atch?v=BswcvmjbreE atch?v=BswcvmjbreE

Superbugs!  MRSA (methicilin- resistant stapholococus aureus)  c difficile  Multi-drug resistance means illnesses that were once treatable are becoming harder to treat  Eg. Tuberculosis, salmonella, pneumonia

New Products for a New Germ Panic  Lysol  m/watch?v=qJh1Q4Yg SHE m/watch?v=qJh1Q4Yg SHE  m/watch?v=hxDkq3rjX Po&feature=related m/watch?v=hxDkq3rjX Po&feature=related