ABSTRACT
Disease epidemics do not just make us question what we know; they also force us to examine who we are. Epidemics can also lead a society to question its obligations to others. We question why members of certain groups seem particularly prone to contracting a certain illness. Is it because of where they live? Their behaviors? Their genetic backgrounds? Who they are? The social construction of target populations influences how we think about those groups and how we implement policies that impact them above and beyond simple calculations of political power and influence (Schneider and Ingram 1993). For example, in the United States, tuberculosis primarily afflicts the poor. What does this reality tell us about the structure of American society and how these groups are (or are not) incorporated into the greater community? Diseases are uniquely able to raise such questions.
