I Stood in Line for the Monkeypox Vaccine. All Around Me Were Echoes of Other Epidemics

From AIDS to COVID-19, Gay Men Have Found Camaraderie Amid the Barrage of Threats to Their Health

tktk | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

It is early August 2022 and I am in San Francisco for a few days. In urban areas with large gay populations such as Los Angeles, where I’m from, and here, monkeypox is on the mind of all my gay friends, and a topic of great interest among my straight ones. As with the first days of COVID-19, this consciousness seems to have come out of nowhere. Only weeks ago monkeypox seemed like a minor issue. Now there are more and more stories of friends of friends who have contracted …

by Robert Whirry | August 25, 2022

Lettuce Lands Are Unlikely Vaccination Leaders | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why California’s Lettuce Lands Are Unlikely Vaccination Leaders

The Rural Salinas and Imperial Valleys Have Succeeded in Reaching the People the Rest of the State Can’t Inoculate

by JOE MATHEWS | November 9, 2021

If demographics and geography really were COVID destiny, then Gonzales—a small, working-class town with a young, overwhelmingly Latino population in rural California—would be a pandemic disaster.

Instead, Gonzales is among California’s …

To End Infectious Disease, We Must Cure Our Societal Ills

Wars, Politics, and the Anti-Vaccine Movement Plague Global Efforts to Stop Epidemics

By Peter Hotez | April 11, 2017

It once was stated that “man’s weakness is not achieving victories, but in taking advantage of them.” Indeed, this is the case for global infection control. Throughout history we have …

Vaccinations Have Always Been Controversial in America

While Creating the Polio Vaccine, Jonas Salk Had to Deal With Critics Like Walter Winchell, Who Warned, "It May Be a Killer"

By Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs | August 4, 2015

In 1952, Americans suffered the worst polio epidemic in our nation’s history. As in prior outbreaks, the disease spread during the summer, mainly attacking children who had been exposed to …

I Was on the Front Line of L.A.’s Last Measles Outbreak

Why Doesn’t Anyone Remember the 12,000 People Who Got Sick, or the 600,000 Vaccine Doses We Gave Out 25 Years Ago?

by Kenn K. Fujioka | March 3, 2015

When it comes to diseases, we never seem to worry until they capture the attention of the media or affect us personally. Today, as new cases of measles turn up …

My Mother Couldn’t Choose Whether to Vaccinate Me for Polio

Dr. Salk’s Great Breakthrough Came 224 Days After I Fell Ill. So All We Could Do Was Head for the Isolation Ward.

by Mark Paul | February 23, 2015

It had been a good year for Lois Mace.

She and her husband, only three years beyond college, had bought their first house. A solid redbrick and clapboard Cape Cod, it …

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