Bullitt Club Lecture: Therapeutic Outcomes Beyond a Cure: Leprosy in 1940s-1960s U.S.

“Therapeutic Outcomes Beyond a Cure: Leprosy in 1940s-1960s U.S.”

Raúl Necochea, Associate Professor, Department of Social Medicine/Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of History, UNC-Chapel Hill

This project focuses on the concept of “arrest” in the case of leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, as well as the transformations the concept underwent with the arrival of the sulfone drugs in the 1940s, and the implications of these changes for patients and public health officers. The concept of “arrest” shows that experts and lay people alike have valued therapeutic outcomes besides “cure,” that signal certain optimal therapeutic milestones, despite the practical difficulties they imply and despite the fact that they don’t promise a return to a pre-illness stage.

Raúl Necochea is an Associate Professor in UNC’s Department of Social Medicine and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of History. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from McGill University. He is broadly interested in the history of medicine and science, sexual and reproductive health, and Latin America. He is the author of A History of Family Planning in Twentieth Century Peru (UNC Press, 2014). He is presently researching the history of cervical cancer in the Andean region, and working on a collaborative project on the social/ethical implications of HIV/AIDS cure research.