Welcome to the Hagströmer Lecture 2022!

The pandemic of Covid-19 has seen a renewed interest in medical history and the sort of expertise only professional historians can offer. But how can historical perspectives inform scientific responses to emerging infectious diseases and could an appreciation of the deep history of pandemics have contributed to better responses to Covid-19? Drawing on their extensive research on the history of epidemics and pandemics, the two distinguished speakers will put recent experiences into historical perspective, while posing questions for the future.

Speakers:

David Morens, M.D., National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease

Emerging epidemics: 5,000 years of existential threats

David M. Morens is Senior Advisor to the Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, U.S. National Institutes of Health, which he joined in 1998. He is trained in pediatrics, preventive medicine, infectious diseases, and virology. Dr. Morens has served as a Public Health Service officer in various capacities at the Center for Disease Control. He was also Professor of Tropical Medicine; Microbiology; Epidemiology, and Public Health at the University of Hawai‘i School of Medicine. Dr. Morens has authored hundreds of scientific articles in major biomedical journals. His career interest for over 45 years has been the study of emerging infectious diseases. He speaks and writes frequently on numerous aspects of emerging diseases, on viral disease pathogenesis, and on the history of medicine and public health.  

Mark Honigsbaum, PhD, University of London

Remembering Pandemics, Imagining Covid-19

Dr Mark Honigsbaum is a medical historian, journalist and academic with wide-ranging interests encompassing health, technology, science and contemporary culture. A regular contributor to The Lancet and The Observer, he is the author of five books including Living With Enza: The Forgotten Story of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 (2009) and The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris (2019) which was named a “health book of the year” by the Financial Times and “science book of the year” in The Times. A former Wellcome Research Fellow, Mark is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Journalism at City, University of London, where he teaches an MA specialism in health and science reporting and is researching the relationship between pandemics and cultural memory.

Moderator:

Jessica Norrbom, PhD, Karolinska Institutet

Pandemic Futures, Pandemic Pasts