My interest spans from the politics of epidemic management to public health systems and access to therapeutics. My first book, Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War with an Epidemic (Cambridge University Press, 2018) received the Book Prize of the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health. I have written on the global infrastructure of diphtheria antitoxin, the politics of vaccination in Eastern Europe, hospital care of disabled children in communist contexts and about shifting epidemic narratives in historical analysis. I am now embarking on a new ERC Starting Grant research project, titled Socialist Medicine: An Alternative Global Health History and a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award project on international socialist networks in the postwar era.
My work has been awarded the J. Worth Estes Prize by the American Association for the History of Medicine; and the Young Scholar Book Prize by the International Committee for the History of Technology. I am co-editor of the journal of Social History of Medicine.
Through the case of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, this chapter explores the role of Eastern Europea... more Through the case of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, this chapter explores the role of Eastern European states in polio prevention and vaccine development in the Cold War. Based on published sources and archival research, the chapter demonstrates that polio facilitated cooperation between the antagonistic sides to prevent a disease that equally affected East and West. Moreover, it argues that Eastern Europe was seen – both by Eastern European states and the West - as different when it came to polio prevention, since the communist states were considered to be particularly well suited to test and successfully implement vaccines.
The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the f... more The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the fundamental assumptions that have traditionally underpinned the history of internationalism. In doing so their articles (some more explicitly than others) have addressed two central questions: who were the internationalists and where was internationalism taking place? The answers to these questions seem deceptively simple. However, as the articles in this issue have demonstrated, agents of internationalism are as diverse in age, gender and social status as the fields in which they operate.
From the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1948, the question of technical assist... more From the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1948, the question of technical assistance was hotly debated by Eastern European countries. Recuperating from the war and undergoing radi- cal political change, they were both recipients and donors of technical assistance in a newly forming system of international health. These countries had specific ideas about the obligations of states and the role of technical aid that did not necessarily map on the dominant, US-led interpretation. While there is a growing literature on technical assis- tance between Eastern Europe and the so-called Third World, the role of technology and expertise at the intersection of liberal and socialist international health has been little explored. Through the case of hospital-building projects and expert networks from a Hungarian perspective, this paper asks how we can understand socialist engage- ment in international health, and how technical assistance among the Second and Third worlds fitted into broader systems.
While global polio eradication is most often associated with “philanthrocapitalism,” the program... more While global polio eradication is most often associated with “philanthrocapitalism,” the program has its roots in the Cold War East. This paper shifts the beginnings of polio eradication by three decades and argues that the vaccine developed in the nexus of liberal internationalism and socialist international networks. The result of a collaboration between Albert Sabin, Soviet and Eastern European virologists and public health officials, the live polio vaccine used today in polio eradication programs began its global journey in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Cuba. The paper argues that socialist ideas and practices of health provided fertile ground for a disease elimination program that rested on a combination of primary health structures and top-down initiatives. Taking the case of the Sabin vaccine, it considers the role of political systems in disease eradication.
Based on oral history interviews, medical literature, hospital newsletters, memoirs and news medi... more Based on oral history interviews, medical literature, hospital newsletters, memoirs and news media, this article explores the ways in which ideals of socialism interacted with medical practice in polio care in 1950s Hungary. Through the everyday life of polio hospitals, it argues that the specific care that polio demanded from hospital staff, parents and children, resonated with state socialist political discourses of gender equality and the breakdown of class barriers and conventional hierarchies in medicine. Providing opportunities, as much as failing to fulfil expectations of patients, parents and medical staff, polio care simultaneously created socialist utopias and demonstrated the limits of political ideals.
The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the f... more The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the fundamental assumptions that have traditionally underpinned the history of internationalism. In doing so their articles (some more explicitly than others) have addressed two central questions: who were the internationalists and where was internationalism taking place? The answers to these questions seem deceptively simple. However, as the articles in this issue have demonstrated, agents of internationalism are as diverse in age, gender and social status as the fields in which they operate.
More so than most of its European neighbours, Spain at the turn of the 21st century thought it ha... more More so than most of its European neighbours, Spain at the turn of the 21st century thought it had relegated diphtheria to the past: the country had not seen a case of diphtheria since 1986. Not, that is, until a 6-year old boy was diagnosed with the disease in May, 2015. Although diphtheria has been a curable disease since the development of diphtheria antitoxin (DAT) in the 1890s and its widespread manufacture in the early 20th century, scarcely a month after his diagnosis, the child succumbed to this disease thought to have been largely tamed by modern medical science.
In 1950s Hungary, with an economy and infrastructure still devastated from World War II and facin... more In 1950s Hungary, with an economy and infrastructure still devastated from World War II and facing further hardships, thousands of children became permanently disabled and many died in the severe polio epidemic that shook the globe. The relatively new communist regime invested significantly in solving the public health crisis, initially importing a vaccine from the West and later turning to the East for a new solution. Through the history of polio vaccination in Hungary, this article shows how Cold War politics shaped vaccine evaluation and implementation in the 1950s. On the one hand, the threat of polio created a safe place for hitherto unprecedented, open cooperation among governments and scientific communities on the two sides of the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, Cold War rhetoric influenced scientific evaluation of vaccines, choices of disease prevention, and ultimately the eradication of polio.
Through the case of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, this chapter explores the role of Eastern Europea... more Through the case of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, this chapter explores the role of Eastern European states in polio prevention and vaccine development in the Cold War. Based on published sources and archival research, the chapter demonstrates that polio facilitated cooperation between the antagonistic sides to prevent a disease that equally affected East and West. Moreover, it argues that Eastern Europe was seen – both by Eastern European states and the West - as different when it came to polio prevention, since the communist states were considered to be particularly well suited to test and successfully implement vaccines.
The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the f... more The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the fundamental assumptions that have traditionally underpinned the history of internationalism. In doing so their articles (some more explicitly than others) have addressed two central questions: who were the internationalists and where was internationalism taking place? The answers to these questions seem deceptively simple. However, as the articles in this issue have demonstrated, agents of internationalism are as diverse in age, gender and social status as the fields in which they operate.
From the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1948, the question of technical assist... more From the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1948, the question of technical assistance was hotly debated by Eastern European countries. Recuperating from the war and undergoing radi- cal political change, they were both recipients and donors of technical assistance in a newly forming system of international health. These countries had specific ideas about the obligations of states and the role of technical aid that did not necessarily map on the dominant, US-led interpretation. While there is a growing literature on technical assis- tance between Eastern Europe and the so-called Third World, the role of technology and expertise at the intersection of liberal and socialist international health has been little explored. Through the case of hospital-building projects and expert networks from a Hungarian perspective, this paper asks how we can understand socialist engage- ment in international health, and how technical assistance among the Second and Third worlds fitted into broader systems.
While global polio eradication is most often associated with “philanthrocapitalism,” the program... more While global polio eradication is most often associated with “philanthrocapitalism,” the program has its roots in the Cold War East. This paper shifts the beginnings of polio eradication by three decades and argues that the vaccine developed in the nexus of liberal internationalism and socialist international networks. The result of a collaboration between Albert Sabin, Soviet and Eastern European virologists and public health officials, the live polio vaccine used today in polio eradication programs began its global journey in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Cuba. The paper argues that socialist ideas and practices of health provided fertile ground for a disease elimination program that rested on a combination of primary health structures and top-down initiatives. Taking the case of the Sabin vaccine, it considers the role of political systems in disease eradication.
Based on oral history interviews, medical literature, hospital newsletters, memoirs and news medi... more Based on oral history interviews, medical literature, hospital newsletters, memoirs and news media, this article explores the ways in which ideals of socialism interacted with medical practice in polio care in 1950s Hungary. Through the everyday life of polio hospitals, it argues that the specific care that polio demanded from hospital staff, parents and children, resonated with state socialist political discourses of gender equality and the breakdown of class barriers and conventional hierarchies in medicine. Providing opportunities, as much as failing to fulfil expectations of patients, parents and medical staff, polio care simultaneously created socialist utopias and demonstrated the limits of political ideals.
The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the f... more The contributors to this special issue have taken up the challenge of reconsidering some of the fundamental assumptions that have traditionally underpinned the history of internationalism. In doing so their articles (some more explicitly than others) have addressed two central questions: who were the internationalists and where was internationalism taking place? The answers to these questions seem deceptively simple. However, as the articles in this issue have demonstrated, agents of internationalism are as diverse in age, gender and social status as the fields in which they operate.
More so than most of its European neighbours, Spain at the turn of the 21st century thought it ha... more More so than most of its European neighbours, Spain at the turn of the 21st century thought it had relegated diphtheria to the past: the country had not seen a case of diphtheria since 1986. Not, that is, until a 6-year old boy was diagnosed with the disease in May, 2015. Although diphtheria has been a curable disease since the development of diphtheria antitoxin (DAT) in the 1890s and its widespread manufacture in the early 20th century, scarcely a month after his diagnosis, the child succumbed to this disease thought to have been largely tamed by modern medical science.
In 1950s Hungary, with an economy and infrastructure still devastated from World War II and facin... more In 1950s Hungary, with an economy and infrastructure still devastated from World War II and facing further hardships, thousands of children became permanently disabled and many died in the severe polio epidemic that shook the globe. The relatively new communist regime invested significantly in solving the public health crisis, initially importing a vaccine from the West and later turning to the East for a new solution. Through the history of polio vaccination in Hungary, this article shows how Cold War politics shaped vaccine evaluation and implementation in the 1950s. On the one hand, the threat of polio created a safe place for hitherto unprecedented, open cooperation among governments and scientific communities on the two sides of the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, Cold War rhetoric influenced scientific evaluation of vaccines, choices of disease prevention, and ultimately the eradication of polio.
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Papers by Dora Vargha