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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing
Session: Responses to People with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy): A Call for Understanding and Compassion
5154.0: Wednesday, November 08, 2006: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM
Oral
Responses to People with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy): A Call for Understanding and Compassion
Hansen’s disease (HD, aka leprosy) has been the most misunderstood and inappropriately feared disease throughout history. Before the advent of modern antibiotics, the slow but inexorable natural progression of this disease left those unlucky people who contracted it with a range of disabilities. In addition to overcoming these physical difficulties, people with HD often had to fight fiercely to maintain their dignity and humanity in the face of stigma and ostracism from a public that mostly preferred to shun them than rather than to embrace and attempt to ameliorate their suffering. The varied responses to this disease across time and geography paint a revealing portrait of human nature, ranging from deep compassion to shallow fear. These talks capture a broad geographic range of the experiences of people with HD, including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Massachusetts. Together they present a continuing challenge for the protection of their human rights.
Learning Objectives: Participants will: 1) understand basic disease biology -- including its cause, natural history and treatment -- and why the fear of the disease is out of proportion to its risks; 2) appreciate the variety of responses over time and place to people with HD and the social, medical and legal contexts in which those responses emerged; 3) learn of ongoing efforts to destigmatize HD and to help people with HD live normal, healthy and productive lives.
Organizer(s):Paul Johansen, MA
Moderator(s):Paul Johansen, MA
2:30 PMStigma and leprosy: When diagnosis leads to human rights issues
Susana Corazon C. Ortega, MA, MPhil
2:50 PMQuarantine in context: A historical analysis of leprosy in Puerto Rico, 1898-1930s  [ Recorded presentation ]
Julie Levison, MD, MPhil
3:10 PMHansen's Disease and human rights: The American historical case
George Joseph
3:30 PMWas isolating people with Hansen's Disease (leprosy) worth the cost?  [ Recorded presentation ]
Paul Johansen, MA
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organized by:Community Health Planning and Policy Development
CE Credits:CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing

The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA