Health, science and development: the emergence of American cutaneous leishmaniasis as a medical and public health challenge in Amazonas state, Brazil. / Saúde, ciência e desenvolvimento: a emergência da leishmaniose tegumentar americana como desafio médico-sanitário no Amazonas.

The history of the emergence of American cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Brazilian state of Amazonas since the 1970s is analyzed as an object of knowledge and a medical and public health challenge. An overview of the period is provided, including the public health measures and scientific studies undertaken in the context of the execution of large-scale regional developments pursued in the name of national integration by the federal government. The methodology uses documental analysis of laws, the scientific literature, research reports, epidemiological bulletins, and newspapers. The results show that American cutaneous leishmaniasis emerged as a major health problem in Amazonas in close association with the political, economic, and socioenvironmental changes seen in the period.

O artigo faz análise histórica da emergência da leishmaniose tegumentar americana como objeto do conhecimento e desafio médico-sanitário no Amazonas desde a década de 1970. Fornece visão geral dessa época, as medidas sanitárias e os estudos científicos realizados no contexto de implantação dos principais projetos de desenvolvimento regionais executados em nome da política de integração nacional do governo federal. Utiliza como metodologia a análise documental de leis, produção científica, relatórios de pesquisa, boletins epidemiológicos e jornais. Os resultados da pesquisa mostram que a doença surgiu no Amazonas associando o grande problema de saúde com mudanças político-econômicas e alterações socioambientais.

Saúde, ciência e desenvolvimento: a emergência da leishmaniose tegumentar americana como desafio médico-sanitário no Amazonas / Health, science and development: the emergence of American cutaneous leishmaniasis as a medical and public health challenge in Amazonas state, Brazil

Resumo O artigo faz análise histórica da emergência da leishmaniose tegumentar americana como objeto do conhecimento e desafio médico-sanitário no Amazonas desde a década de 1970. Fornece visão geral dessa época, as medidas sanitárias e os estudos científicos realizados no contexto de implantação dos principais projetos de desenvolvimento regionais executados em nome da política de integração nacional do governo federal. Utiliza como metodologia a análise documental de leis, produção científica, relatórios de pesquisa, boletins epidemiológicos e jornais. Os resultados da pesquisa mostram que a doença surgiu no Amazonas associando o grande problema de saúde com mudanças político-econômicas e alterações socioambientais.

Abstract The history of the emergence of American cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Brazilian state of Amazonas since the 1970s is analyzed as an object of knowledge and a medical and public health challenge. An overview of the period is provided, including the public health measures and scientific studies undertaken in the context of the execution of large-scale regional developments pursued in the name of national integration by the federal government. The methodology uses documental analysis of laws, the scientific literature, research reports, epidemiological bulletins, and newspapers. The results show that American cutaneous leishmaniasis emerged as a major health problem in Amazonas in close association with the political, economic, and socioenvironmental changes seen in the period.

Assessing the economics of animal trypanosomosis in Africa--history and current perspectives.

Finding appropriate ways of dealing with the problem of tsetse and trypanosomosis will be an important component of efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa. This article reviews the history of economic analyses of the problem, starting with the use of cost to guide choice of technique for tsetse control in the 1950s, followed by work in the 1970s and 1980s linking these to the impact of the disease on livestock productivity, and in the 1990s to its wider impact. In the current situation, with limited resources and a range of techniques for controlling or eliminating tsetse, the cost implications of choosing one technique or another are important and a recent study reviewed these costs. A novel approach to assessing the potential benefits from removing trypanosomosis by creating 'money maps' showed that high losses from animal trypanosomosis currently occur in areas with high cattle population densities on the margins of the tsetse distribution and where animal traction is an important component of farming systems. Given the importance of the decisions to be made in the next decade, when prioritising and choosing techniques for dealing with tsetse and trypanosomosis, more work needs to be done underpinning such mapping exercises and estimating the true cost and likely impact of planned interventions.

IPM for fresh-market lettuce production in the desert southwest: the produce paradox.

In the 'Integrated Control Concept', Stern et al. emphasized that, although insecticides are necessary for agricultural production, they should only be used as a last resort and as a complement to biological control. They argued that selective insecticide use should only be attempted after it has been determined that insect control with naturally occurring biotic agents is not capable of preventing economic damage. However, they concluded their seminal paper by emphasizing that integrated control will not work where natural enemies are inadequate or where economic thresholds are too low to rely on biological control. Thus, it is no surprise that insect control in high-value, fresh-market lettuce crops grown in the desert southwest have relied almost exclusively on insecticides to control a complex of mobile, polyphagous pests. Because lettuce and leafy greens are short-season annual crops with little or no tolerance for insect damage or contamination, biological control is generally considered unacceptable. High expectations from consumers for aesthetically appealing produce free of pesticide residues further forces vegetable growers to use chemical control tactics that are not only effective but safe. Consequently, scientists have been developing integrated pest management (IPM) programs for lettuce that are aimed at reducing the economic, occupational and dietary risks associated with chemical controls of the past. Most of these programs have drawn upon the integrated control concept and promote the importance of understanding the agroecosystem, and the need to sample for pest status and use action thresholds for cost-effective insect control. More recently, pest management programs have implemented newly developed, reduced-risk chemistries that are selectively efficacious against key pests. This paper discusses the influence that the integrated control concept, relative to zero-tolerance market standards and other constraints, has had on the adoption of pest management in desert lettuce crops.

"The horizon opened up very greatly": Leland O. Howard and the transition to chemical insecticides in the United States, 1894-1927.

The transition to synthetic chemicals as a popular method of insect control in the United States was one of the most critical developments in the history of American agriculture. Historians of agriculture have effectively identified the rise and charted the dominance of early chemical insecticides as they came to define commercial agriculture between the emergence of Paris green in the 1870s and the popularity of DDT in the 1940s and beyond. Less understood, however, are the underlying mechanics of this transition. this article thus takes up the basic question of how farmers and entomologists who were once dedicated to an impressively wide range of insect control options ultimately settled on the promise of a chemically driven approach to managing destructive insects. Central to this investigation is an emphasis on the bureaucratic maneuverings of Leland O. Howard, who headed the Bureau of Entomology from 1894 to 1927. Like most entomologists of his era, Howard was theoretically interested in pursuing a wide variety of control methods--biological, chemical, and cultural included. In the end, however, he employed several tactics to streamline the government's efforts to almost exclusively support arsenic and lead-based chemical insecticides as the most commercially viable form of insect control. While Howard in no way "caused" the national turn to chemicals, this article charts the pivotal role he played in fostering that outcome.

African trypanosomiasis.

Trypanosomiasis remains one of the most serious constraints to economic development in sub-Saharan Africa and, as a consequence, related research has been subject to strong social and political as well as scientific influences. The epidemics of sleeping sickness that occurred at the turn of the 20th Century focussed research efforts on what became known as 'the colonial disease'. This focus is thought to have produced 'vertical' health services aimed at this one disease, while neglecting other important health issues. Given the scale of these epidemics, and the fact that the disease is fatal if left untreated, it is unsurprising that sleeping sickness dominated colonial medicine. Indeed, recent evidence indicates that, if anything, the colonial authorities greatly under-estimated the mortality attributable to sleeping sickness. Differences in approach to disease control between Francophone and Anglophone Africa, which in the past have been considered ideological, on examination prove to be logical, reflecting the underlying epidemiological divergence of East and West Africa. These epidemiological differences are ancient in origin, pre-dating the colonial period, and continue to the present day. Recent research has produced control solutions, for the African trypanosomiases of humans and livestock, that are effective, affordable and sustainable by small-holder farmers. Whether these simple solutions are allowed to fulfil their promise and become fully integrated into agricultural practice remains to be seen. After more than 100 years of effort, trypanosomiasis control remains a controversial topic, subject to the tides of fashion and politics.

[The Institut de Belleville: expansion and decline of research on biological control in Canada, 1909-1972]. / L'institut de Belleville: expansion et déclin de la récherche sur le controle biologique au Canada, 1909-1972.

Ever since the beginnings of economic entomology in Canada, research in biological control has drawn substantial support from the Federal Department of Agriculture. Enjoying a stable institutional environment with the establishment of the Dominion Parasite Laboratory in Belleville, Ontario, in 1929, biological control has also occupied an important position on the research agenda of the Department until the late sixties. Support from the scientific authorities was nevertheless fraught with important paradoxes. For example, research laboratories in biological control were built at a time when North American economic entomologists relied almost exclusively on synthetic chemical compounds like DDT. For some historians of science, the autonomy of Canadian entomologists explains the growth of this research program in the aftermath of World War II. However, the autonomy of the scientific community is a notion that is taken for granted in these historical explanations. In this article, I will demonstrate the institutional dynamic underlying the autonomy of Canadian entomologists in pursuing a research agenda suited to their interests. I will pay close attention to the role of certain actors -- foreign entomological services and the forest and pulp and paper industries - in the rise of a Canadian expertise in biological control. As well, I will show how their interventions forced a reorganization of research on the biological control of insect pests in agriculture and in forestry, and how this reorganization eventually entailed the dismantling of the Belleville laboratory in 1972.

[The antimalaria campaign in Italy between control and eradication: the Sardinian experiment]. / La lotta antimalarica in Italia fra controllo ed eradicazione: l'esperimento Sardegna.

The aim of this paper is to examine historically the alternative between control and eradication of the infectious diseases, starting with the idea of eradication itself, a result of the Pasteurian revolution. The eradication of malaria in Italy is taken as a case study. Through an extensive use of the archival sources, the alternative between control and eradication is analysed for the first years of the Sardinian Project, directed by the Rockefeller Foundation, that resulted in the eradication of malaria in Sardinia. This program is compared with the different program, grounded in the Italian malariological tradition, that in the same years carried out the eradication of malaria in the rest of Italy.