Preliminary Programme

Wed 22 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Thu 23 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Fri 24 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

Sat 25 March
    8:30
    10:45
    14:15
    16:30

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Wednesday 22 March 2006 14:15
T-3 HEA04 Marketing Health
Room T
Network: Health and Environment Chair: Bernard Harris
Organizers: - Discussant: Bernard Harris
Iris Borowy : The Effect of World Depression: How to safeguard Public Health with Little Money
As the world economic crisis of the early 1930s led to mass unemployment and poverty, international health experts monitored their effects on public health. Common sense dictated a direct correlation: reduced employment meant reduced income which, in turn, meant reduced expenditures for health, both on an individual and a public ... (Show more)
As the world economic crisis of the early 1930s led to mass unemployment and poverty, international health experts monitored their effects on public health. Common sense dictated a direct correlation: reduced employment meant reduced income which, in turn, meant reduced expenditures for health, both on an individual and a public or corporate level. Surprisingly, however, little if any effect became evident in available mortality and morbidity data.
However, as bewildered scientists and health officers looked into the matter, the focus shifted from questionable short-term results of the crisis to an increasingly evident long-term connection between economics and health. Under the tutelage of the League of Nations, international working groups explored
1. Statistical Methods to study the effects of depression on morbidity,
2. Measures taken in different countries to ensure healthy nutrition in spite of bad economic conditions,
3. Money saving potential through better coordination of the public health structure,
4. Colonisation, i.e. wild or organised settlements of unemployed at the outskirts of cities, and
5. Mental hygiene, i.e. the psychological effects of the depression.
Soon, nutrition and the tangible effects of unemployment on food consumption and malnutrition came to dominate the agenda. These discussions politicised ongoing studies on nutrition, evoking discussions on school meals, minimal wages, effective social legislation, price regulations and wealth allocation within societies.
Together, it proved impossible to contain the issue within the narrow confines of medicine but broadened to include aspects of economic and political structure and controversial concepts of societal responsibilities. Thus, health concerns of economic crisis served as a catalyst to provoke discussions on fundamental issues of social justice. (Show less)

Ximo Guillem-Llobat : Medicine and Economy in saccharin regulation
Saccharin was discovered in 1878 by Ira Remsen and Costantin Fahlberg. From the beginning this sweetener was surrounded by controversy. First the authorship of the discovery was questioned; this, in any case, didn’t stop the development of its industrial applications. Saccharin soon increased considerably its sales and started to become ... (Show more)
Saccharin was discovered in 1878 by Ira Remsen and Costantin Fahlberg. From the beginning this sweetener was surrounded by controversy. First the authorship of the discovery was questioned; this, in any case, didn’t stop the development of its industrial applications. Saccharin soon increased considerably its sales and started to become an important competence for sugar. It was then that this chemical sweetener was prohibited in several countries. This prohibition became a second matter of controversy. Although legislators argued that saccharin had been banned for its toxicity these apparent sanitary reasons really hid important economic interests.
Several papers dealing with this second controversy have already been published. These papers have shown the importance of economic interests in the regulation of saccharin’s consumption in Germany and the USA.
In our paper we will study the way in which the controversy related to the prohibition of saccharin took place during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth century in Spain. We will analyze how the regulation in the consumption of this sweetener evolved in a country where the level of industrialization of food production was very low. Our case study will then be compared to other known cases as the German or the North American one.
We will use several sources for the elaboration of this paper. In first place, we will analyze the Spanish legislation related to saccharin. Thus we will work with almost a dozen laws concerning saccharin that were approved at that moment. In second place, we will use numerous documents related to the food regulation activity developed by the Laboratorio Químico Municipal of the city of Valencia, one of the biggest of the country. Many of its analysis reports are still conserved in the Municipal Archives and from those reports at least a couple of dozens deal with saccharin. In third place, to appreciate the influence of the beet sugar industry in the approval of the saccharin legislation, we will take into account the strength of this industry in Spain and the direct personal relationship between this industry and relevant Spanish politicians. Several reports and books published in the studied period give us important clues in this sense. In addition to this, some papers of important physicians as Vicent Peset i Cervera and Joan Baptista Peset Aleixandre where the toxicity of saccharin is discussed will also be considered. These papers will be important to evaluate the sanitary problems which in theory justified the approval of the saccharin legislation. (Show less)

Riitta Oittinen : “Why are flesh and blood so cheap but bread so expensive? “ - Health, Class Struggle and Political Argumentation in Early 20th Century Finland
The paper analyses the Finnish Social Democratic women’s conception of social equality and welfare as preconditions for health, using their magazine Työläisnainen [The Working Woman] (1905-1914) as a principal source. As befits the title of the journal, Työläisnainen contained articles both for the working woman as well as by the ... (Show more)
The paper analyses the Finnish Social Democratic women’s conception of social equality and welfare as preconditions for health, using their magazine Työläisnainen [The Working Woman] (1905-1914) as a principal source. As befits the title of the journal, Työläisnainen contained articles both for the working woman as well as by the working woman.
Popular education and guidance were typical of the Nordic countries at the turn of the century. Educationalists, researchers and women’s organizations campaigned for a healthy life in the pages of newspapers, booklets, and in the classes of popular educational associations. The morally educative message of adequate clothing, diet, cleanliness and housing conditions was targeted at the common people and the working class. Cleanliness was underlined both on the tangible and the symbolic level. All dirtiness, material and mental alike, as reflected by irregular living habits, came to be considered as the common symptom of poor health. Responsibility for the poor health of the working population was laid at the door of working mothers and, in particular, their poor household skills.
Health and bodily issues were a catalyst for political argument and social action at the general and specific levels. Articles, fiction, poetry and pictures in Työläisnainen clearly show that the debate on the dimensions of health – the everyday, the private, and the public – and, in particular, on the preconditions for health, was actively shared by others than politicians and (medical) experts only. The writings also give an insight into the mixed reactions to health education. The undertone in the writings was that of a striving for greater autonomy, including greater financial autonomy and greater autonomy over one’s own body.
It is important to note that the domain of health and the preconditions of welfare were not being defined solely by experts and working class women were not only at the receiving end. The role of women - and obligations placed on them - in the birth of the welfare state has been rediscovered by recent research both in the Nordic countries and further afield. Research has also shown that socialist women’s movements across Europe had very similar programmes between the wars. They included health care for mothers and children, planned motherhood based on birth control and some form of state endowment for mothers, children and widows.
Such issues were discussed in political women’s groups in Finland at the very beginning of the 20th century. Finland was the first country in the world where women MPs took the debate and policy demands to the parliament (from 1907). Poverty and related health issues were raised in parliament especially by Social Democrats but the subject was also discussed in local government level, at workplaces and in neighbourhoods and families. These debates were reflected in the printed press and, in the case of labour women, in the labour press and especially in the women’s journal Työläisnainen. (Show less)



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