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Since the 1980s, some commercial airline pilots and flight crews in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia began to report an illness they believed was caused by exposure to contaminated cabin air. Despite a body of scientific research and health activism calling for this condition, termed Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS), to be classified an occupational illness, it has not been accepted as a clinical entity because its causation remains contested. This article contends that debates over the recognition of AS have been shaped by the politics of science and what can be considered evidence of a causal link; the burden of proof lay with survivors and their allies rather than with airlines and manufacturers. The history of AS shows the challenges of reacting to health risks in a global industry that provides an important form of transportation, and enjoys considerable political and economic influence. It also reveals that at the heart of commercial jet air travel remains an unresolved public health issue, and those who claim to be suffering from AS expected prompt recognition, reform and assistance in light of scientific research and personal testimony, as well as a range of chemical, medical, legal and air safety reports.

Since the 1980s, some commercial airline pilots and flight crews in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia began to report an illness they believed was caused by exposure to contaminated cabin air. Despite a body of scientific research and health activism calling for this condition, termed Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS), to be classified an occupational illness, it has not been accepted as a clinical entity because its causation remains contested. This article contends that debates over the recognition of AS have been shaped by the politics of science and what can be considered evidence of a causal link; the burden of proof lay with survivors and their allies rather than with airlines and manufacturers. The history of AS shows the challenges of reacting to health risks in a global industry that provides an important form of transportation, and enjoys considerable political and economic influence. It also reveals that at the heart of commercial jet air travel remains an unresolved public health issue, and those who claim to be suffering from AS expected prompt recognition, reform, and assistance in light of scientific research and personal testimony, as well as a range of chemical, medical, legal, and air safety reports.

Frontmatter --Contents --Notes on Contributors --Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945-2020 --Part I: Geography, Community and American Health --Introduction --1 Health and Inequality in the Postwar Metropolis --2 Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural Communities --3 The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health Care --4 Latinxs and the US Health Care System --5 American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle --Part II: Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories --Introduction --6 The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950-60: Detractors and Defenders --7 Beyond the Cancer Wars --8 A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic --9 The Politics of 'Obesity': Medicalization, Stigmatization and Liberation of Fat Bodies --10 Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive Disorder --Part III: The Politics of Children's Health --Introduction --11 US Children's Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological Conflict --12 Autism and the Anti-Vaccine Movement --13 Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on Screen --14 On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender Children --15 Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and Care --Part IV: The Institutional Matrix of Health Care --Introduction --16 The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals --17 Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Center System --18 The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to Iraq --19 The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health Services --20 The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research Infrastructure --Part V: The White House, Congress and Health Reform --Introduction --21 Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935-50 --22 Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage --23 Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990s --24 The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump --25 Obamacare and Its Critics --Part VI: Justice, Ethics and American Health --Introduction --26 Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to Health --27 Genetics, Health and the Making of America's Triracial Isolates, 1950-80 --28 The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a Pandemic --29 Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun Violence --30 Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States --Part VII: Public Health and Global Health --Introduction --31 Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century America --32 Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970s --33 Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public --34 Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond --35 Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary Health --Bibliography --Index

Examines the diverse, and often conflicted, political status of health in the United States from World War II to Covid-19Explores the histories, cultures, policies and technologies of American health and medicine as they have developed over a 75-year periodBrings together 45 experts from the US, Canada and the UK working across the fields of medicine, health policy, political and social history, political science, environmental studies, law, and cultural studiesUses the lenses of class, poverty, race, gender, sexuality and locality to study the concepts, policies and lived realities of U.S. healthcare and medical treatmentExplores key controversies in American health, including global health and new technologiesBy emphasising the plurality of health experiences, and balancing national and transnational perspectives with the lived realities of diverse communities, this groundbreaking collection expands far beyond biomedical conceptions of health. Together, the contributors take a multi-layered view of the politics of US healthcare by examining it from historical, cultural, medical, sociological, legal, ethical and environmental perspectives. Chapters consider major health institutions and the federal policies that guide them; the intersection between health and social movements; the contours of health and illness with respect to race, gender, sexuality, age and region; and the US's often-conflicted role in global health governance