Peripheral nerve: health and medicine in Cold War Latin America

Introduction: Alternative Destinies and Solidarities for Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America / Anne-Emanuelle Birn -- Under Surveillance : Public Health, the FBI, and Exile in Cold War Mexico / -- Katherine E. Bliss -- National Politics and Scientific Pursuits : Medical Education and the Strategic Value of Science in Revolutionary Bolivia / Nicole L. Pacino -- Cold War Mexico in a Time of "Wonder Drugs" / Gabriela Soto Laveaga -- The Puerto Rico Family Life Study and the Cold War Politics of Fertility Surveys / Raúl Necochea López -- Parasitology and Communism : Public Health and Politics in Samuel Barnsley Pessoa's Brazil / Gilberto Hochman and Carlos Henrique Assunção Paiva -- Revolutionizing Cuban Psychiatry : The Freud Wars, 1955-1970 / Jennifer Lynn Lambe -- From Cold War Pressures to State Policy to People's Health : The Politics of Social Medicine and Socialized Medical Care in Chile / Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney -- "Psychotherapy of the Oppressed" : Anti-imperialism and Psychoanalysis in Cold War Buenos Aires / Marco Ramos -- South-South Cooperation as a Cold War Tonic : Cuban Medical Diplomacy to Sandinista Nicaragua, 1979-1990 / Cheasty Anderson -- Epilogue: A Lingering Cold (War)? Reflections for the Present and an Agenda for further Research / Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Raúl Necochea López.

"PERIPHERAL NERVE is an edited volume that brings together scholars from the United States, Canada, and Latin America to challenge the dominant narrative that the United States was the primary medical interlocutor in Latin America during the Cold War. It chronicles the experiences of Latin Americans who sought alternative channels of health and medical solidarity with the Soviet Union and via South-South solidarities within and beyond Latin America. These channels, which included anti-colonial psychoanalysis in Argentina and the emergence of local and specialized fertility research in Puerto Rico, were alternative to mainland U.S. interests and served as a vital part of health policy and medical developments in the Global South. Ultimately, the collection highlights the multivalent nature of the Latin American Cold War as a significant perspective for studies of medicine and public health, international development, and international relations.^

The volume is divided into three parts, with three or four chapters each, that explore leftist affinities and U.S. suspicions, expertise and contested ideologies, and health politics and publics. Part I includes a chapter by Katherine E. Bliss where she showcases the life and contributions of Lini de Vries, a community health worker who developed health education programs for Indigenous communities in Oaxaca, but who came to be viewed as a threat to national U.S. interests because of her communist ties. Chapter 2 by Nicole L. Pacino examines how the Rockefeller Foundation refused to fund medical schools in Bolivia because of the revolutionary consciousness and communist values of the country and its students.^