Harriet A. Washington [part 2]: Understanding the 'deadly monopolies' of the medical-industrial-complex (podcast interview)
Harriet A. Washington (@haw95) is an award-winning medical writer and editor and the author of the best-selling book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. She is also the author of A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind. In her work, Harriet focuses mainly on bioethics, the history of medicine, African-American health issues, and the intersection of medicine, ethics, and culture.
In this part two of our conversation, Harriet sheds light on what the medical-industrial-complex is and how it's been crossing the lines in finding things to profit off of; how public health threats to people of color really should concern everybody in a society; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Harriet and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Yarrow by Kim Anderson
“Personal responsibility in health is really important, and we should be espousing that. The problem is when one focuses on personal responsibility in situations where the individual has no responsibility and has no power to change things that are happening—environmental exposure is one of those.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological regeneration, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app, and support Green Dreamer on Patreon so we can keep the show going and accessible to all!
On the limitations of personal responsibility within public health:
"Personal responsibility in health is really important, and we should be espousing that. The problem is when one focuses on personal responsibility in situations where the individual has no responsibility and has no power to change things that are happening—environmental exposure is one of those.
For instance, if we talk about someone who lives across the street (and has been for decades) from a diesel fuel-spewing bus depot in Harlem, and then tell that person, 'Oh, you're sick! You have diabetes; you have kidney disease. You need to lose weight.' This is not an uncommon scenario.
Perhaps the person does need to lose weight—that has nothing to do with the fact that the fumes have been triggering their kidney disease and asthma, exacerbating their hypertension, and that things that they have no control over are ruining their health."
On recognizing that today's public health threats to communities of color will impact everyone:
"Many health effects—from pathogens to environmental exposures—have a way of affecting us all. African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans are canaries in the coal mine. What's happening to us today and what's happened to us yesterday will happen to you tomorrow.
There's something called the Robinhood Index. Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Ichiro Kawachi at the Harvard School of Public Health used this index to look at health. What they found was countries that had wide disparities dramatically harmed communities of color and they also harmed the middle class. Rich people are able to buy their way out of a lot of difficulties—the middle class cannot.
So what happens is that we have these profound harms that today are ravaging the bodies and minds of African Americans and Native Americans, but tomorrow will ravage the minds of a large group of Americans. It's not only an ethical, noble sentiment, but it's also a physical reality. These horrible desecrations are going to impact almost all of us, eventually."
Final words of wisdom:
"It's important not to give up. In times like this, when things look really bleak, one can't hear that enough. It's really important that if you're convinced what you're doing is right and that the stance you have is important, not to be dissuaded from it or deflected from it. Most importantly, don't be lulled into settling for something that's insufficient to deal with a problem.
As I age, probably the thing that I'm most grateful for is that I feel like I have not tempered or slowed down in that way, which some people may say is the opposite of wisdom. But I think there's no point in being alive or trying if you're not sometimes radical—and it's important to be radical and alive."
