Conspiracy Theories, Distrust, and Public Health in America
Starred review from July 1, 2024
An in-depth study of medical mistrust in post-pandemic America. Gorman, a public health expert and author of Denying to the Grave, uses interviews she conducted with subjects from a range of backgrounds to show how medical mistrust and belief in conspiracy theories connect to the current political climate, as well as how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced Americans' lack of confidence in the health care system and the government's ability to care for its people. Though the author focuses on the current pandemic era, she makes relevant arguments about how our current situation has been building through disasters like the 2008 financial crisis, the AIDS epidemic, and ongoing attacks on funding for social services in the U.S. "The loss of trust in the healthcare system is not independent of the loss of trust in other prominent institutions of our democracy--everything is in fact connected," writes Gorman. She also examines how egregious experiments of the past, including but not limited to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, have further alienated Black Americans, though she argues that present-day systemic racism is an even deadlier deterrent for many people of color in seeking health care. In that way, Gorman's work is equal parts tightly focused and wide ranging, tackling many related issues of our age with expert research and highly readable storytelling. "It feels as though every event in the United States is inevitably shrouded in a dark cloud of distrust and conspiracy theories," she writes, "and sometimes that smog is so thick and so opaque that we feel absolutely lost in looking for a clear path forward." Throughout the book, Gorman not only helps readers understand the grave mistakes of the past; she also offers suggestions to find a path forward. A timely, significant examination of how Covid-19 affected many American systems, from health care to government.
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