Pharmaceuticals, Health, and Citizenship in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

• In Event: Racism and Health I

Abstract

This paper draws from a larger book project about ways in which extraordinary crises can reveal fundamental racialization of access to citizenship and health in the United States, and specifically from a chapter that focuses on the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At the time, there was a great deal of worry among public health experts about the spread of infectious disease, but it was morbidity and mortality from chronic disease – especially cardiovascular disease – that emerged as a far greater problem. In this paper, I track the travels of pharmaceuticals in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to explore three key ways in which the response to the emergency exacerbated the preexisting precarity of the population, especially with regard to health. First, the harmful impact of the War on Drugs was reflected in an acute barrier to access to pharmaceuticals: pharmaceuticals that people brought with them to the Superdome outside of its original packaging were discarded by the National Guard, which prioritized restricting access to illicit drugs over facilitating access to licit ones. Second, drug donation programs provided some essential relief, but were inefficient and their provisions often inappropriate. Third, disruption of already tenuous continuity of care left many patients without knowledge of much less access to their prior pharmaceutical treatment regimens. Tracking these pharmaceutical travels reveals how (lack of) access to medicines reflected (lack of) access to citizenship and health for the racialized population impacted by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Author

• Anne Pollock, Georgia Tech