Home > Work > The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease
1 " The phrase 'the great epi divide' makes me think of old paper maps and signs about who is allowed to enter and who has to stay out. It is a phrase that points to an American reality: some people are taken care of and others are not. A choice is made. The 'great epi divide' sounds more accurate to me than the more ubiquitous 'disparities in health care,' which suggests that a terrible thing has happened, but without active participation on anyone's part. Disparities arise. Inequalities exists. These words trouble but, at the same time, offer reprieve: no one is implicated. The same is true of the word 'poverty,' that knife of an abstraction. A phrase like 'diseases of poverty' obscures the degree to which we have made choices about funding for public health. "
― Daisy Hernández , The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease