645PellagraAndPride

Science gives you testable and falsifiable information about the world. Whereas ethics, morality, philosophy, and governing are highly debatable, science can be relied upon as long as the procedures to procure it are trusted. That is why I think it is interesting to note, the methods that people use in politics to deny obvious scientific data, even to the point where it hurts their immediate community. This concept can even be seen today, as science policy is conducted, with disregard to the nature of science. It has become a common thesis to note that in the case of Pellagra in the south, the people denied the results of Goldberger’s findings due to pride in their culture- one that was well-fed and separate from the hunger of poorer, less agricultural nations.

Americans refused to acknowledge hunger in the political south in the early twentieth century. It is always safer, politically, to feed starving foreigners than starving Americans. In 1930, 15 years after Pellagra was diagnosed, 200,000 Americans died due to a lack of availability of ‘simple greens.’ This shows the difficulty arising between a diagnosis and a commitment to treatment The scientific background to Pellagra shows how important American ideology was. -In France in the mid- 19th century, although Pellagra was attributed to a transmission from sheep, the government ordered the reduction of cultivation of corn to allow potatoes and animal husbandry, based on the studies of Theophile Rossel. Roussel had convinced the government that social intervention was necessary when science failed. For this he won the prize in medicine by the French Academy of sciences. Also, “political geography” forces the government to encourage crops that have the greatest amount of revenue. To have a scientist proclaim that the revenue-producing crop is hurting the poor, is implausible, and was contested heavily.

With these studies in mind I think it was important to note the specific actions taken to resist findings, all the reactions culminating into one reason- pride. I note them hear in an action reaction format: Action: Goldberger compares ways of South to Chinese famines. Blames government for not taking action at home, making the South seem as if they needed maternal care, similar to that of lesser civilized peoples. Reaction: Southern newspapers ignore the reports. Ignoring can be judged in comparison to the North, where New York Times put Pellegra on Front Page. Action: Public Health Service pledges $18,000, although $140,000 are needed. Realization sets in on the economics behind the problem. Something that is already threatened in that year due to loss in cotton sales. Cotton sales are based on slave labor. The importance of cotton can be seen in the history of Georgia: “Georgia's cotton economy peaked on the eve of World War I (1917-18). Georgia produced a record 2.8 million bales on 4.9 million acres in 1911.” However at the time that Goldberger along with President Harding deciphered the economics behind the disease an “insect reduced the state's cotton yields an average of 29 percent from 1918 to 1924.” Reaction: Respected families spoke out against the famine. An attack was launched against the President by the editor of the Daily News. Action: Comparisons are made to hookworm. Similarities include: 1) Symbols of poverty 2) Both found in tenant farmers and croppers 3) Both had increased as slave labor increased (without which the textile industry could not survive) Reaction: Politicians who supported funding Pellagra took back their word. Example: Senator N. B. Dial and Congressman James F. Byrnes. Action: Congress starts debating the Pellagra case Reaction: Oklahoma and other states brand famine reports as “malicious propaganda” and proceed to export food. Reaction 2: Increased effort to raise cotton revenue although it was dropping. Reaction 3: Health offices of 6 Southern states denied the increase of Pellagra… some even stated that it was decreasing. Reaction 4: Georgia Senate passes a statement “damming” the report of Pellagra. Action: Government had established a Pellagra Hospital in Sartanburg, S.C. Reaction: Spartanburg mayor reported that there was no poverty in the city. These biased reports existed for another 50 years. Action: President states that diet of salt pork, corn bread, and molasses led to Pellagra Reaction: A statement was made appealing to patriots, which proclaimed that for 4 years that was the diet of Confederate soldiers, and they were fine. Action: Many different people including lawyer, teachers, lumbermen, and patients wrote individual letter to the Public Health Service crying out for the existence of Pellagra. Conclusion: The South couldn’t survive on a single cotton- so they had to diversify. Knowledge of Pellagra was denied till the South could justify action through secondary reasons. The denial spread in a systematic form starting with elitist public outcry which lead to denial in small beauracratic arenas (health centers) followed by businessmen, concluding with politicians.

Overall it seems that pride overtook every sector of society, starting at the easiest to manipulate, the people, and working it’s way up through the economic public and private sectors, eventually to academia. Eventually the south realized it couldn’t survive on a single crop, cotton- so they had to diversify. Knowledge of Pellagra was denied till the South could justify action through secondary reasons. It was irrational for them to deny the existence of Pellagra on the basis of pride, but to admit to their irrationality would have hurt them more politically. I think this research shows the lack of emphasis science has by itself. Similar trends can be seen throughout history, as in the case of Mutually Assured Destruction, in which the science showed a power scheme large enough for both countries to ‘win’ by blowing up the world, but the war did not end until one nation had overtaken the other on an economic battleground. I think this may reveal similar results if global warning were to be analyzed. It may be the case that political institutions disregard the science, since it is not valuable enough, until they have something more feasible, such as economics to back it up. However, this study also shows the importance of people in democratic nations to change the opinion of every sector of society, from bureaucratic all the way through to academia.

Research

Mooney, Chris The Republican War on Science Basic Books: New York 2005 Goldberger Vs. The South: http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/goldberger/docs/south_6.htm Starr, Paul The Social Transformation of American Medicine Basic Books: New York 1982 pgs 329-340 Roe, Daphne A Plague of Corn: The Social History of Pellagra. Cornell University Press. Ithica, NY 1973 Ethridge, Elizabeth The Butterfly Caste: A Social History of Pellagra in the South. Contributions in American History. No 17. 1972

ss