Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia

Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia focuses on Southeast Asia during the Cold War because this was a time when many of the institutions and people that have shaped the subsequent responses to outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics first developed. For far too long, Southeast Asia has been treated as a static backdrop for the exploits and discoveries of Western biomedical doctors. Yet, Southeast Asians have been vital to the significant developments in the prevention and treatment of diseases that have taken place in the region and beyond. In other words, the Cold War framed many current trends in less than obvious ways. The diversity of approaches to health and medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia also reminds us of the possibilities, and limits, of human intervention in the face of political, social, economic, and microbial realities. More than just a source of emerging infectious diseases, the people and places of Southeast Asia have provided a clinical trial for different health regimes. This volume highlights new perspectives and methods that have evolved from research presented at regional conferences. These insights serve to challenge dominant models of the medical humanities that still ignore much human experience.