The Human Nature of Infectious Disease

Infectious disease raises questions about humans’ abilities to eliminate harm through the control of nature. People work to understand microbial life in order to manage the ways microbes mutate, adapt, and evolve, even while recognizing organisms’ essential nature. Public health practices from the past and present exemplify this ongoing quest to “solve” disease. Eradicating pathogens persists as a public health objective, even as new microbes emerge in the human environment. “Superbugs” and antibiotic resistance exemplify the problem-solution-problem cycle of disease. Moving from solutions-based thinking enables new imaginings of the microbial world in which humans reside.