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November 2004, Vol 94, No. 11 | American Journal of Public Health 1854-1863
© 2004 American Public Health Association

PUBLIC HEALTH THEN AND NOW

PLUMBISM REINVENTED: Childhood Lead Poisoning in France, 1985–1990

Didier Fassin, MD, PhD, MPH and Anne-Jeanne Naudé, MA

The authors are with the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales and Cresp (Centre de recherche sur les enjeux contemporains en santé publique), Paris, France. Didier Fassin is also with the University of Paris North.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Didier Fassin, MD, PhD, MPH, Cresp—Inserm/University of Paris North/EHESS, 74 rue Marcel Cachin, 93017 Bobigny Cedex, France (e-mail: dfassin{at}ehess.fr).

Although the history of childhood lead poisoning started a century ago in the United States, the first French cases were identified in 1985. Instead of merely adopting knowledge accumulated for decades, the public health professionals and activists involved had to reestablish, against incredulity from medical authorities and resistance from policymakers, all the evidence: that children were the main group concerned; that cases were not isolated but part of an epidemic; that wall paint in old, dilapidated apartments was the source of contamination; and that poor housing conditions, and not cultural practices, were responsible for the high incidence in African families.

This "reinvention" illustrates more general sociological phenomena: discontinuities in medical history, strength of culturalist prejudices toward immigrants, resistance to socioeconomic interpretations of disease, and struggles between different perspectives in public health. The history shows that public health is the product of intellectual and political struggles to impose visions of the world.




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 Am. J. Public HealthHome page
T. M. Brown and E. Fee
A Role for Public Health History
Am J Public Health, November 1, 2004; 94(11): 1851 - 1853.
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