Reducing injections for US children :(

I’ve cited Kat Lay’s “What effect will Donald Trump’s childhood vaccine recommendations have in the US and beyond?” Since appointed in 2025, Secretary Health & Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr sought to loosen vaccine regulations. Kennedy is a leading vaccination sceptic who has for years increa-sed dishonesty about vaccines. A study found he was the top super-spreader of Covid-19 vaccine deception on Twitter/X in 2021. He tried to reshape US vaccination schedules but his attempts were blocked by federal judges. So reporters were told that judges’ rulings were not the same as an Executive Order. In a CNN interview, Kennedy insisted he’d never questioned the MMR vaccine’s efficacy. The proposed changes were to give parents choice, not to limit access to vaccines.

Pres Trump signs order to reduce childhood vaccines & reduce autism 

and Sec of Health Kennedy is the witness

Aug 2026, WSJ

A new Executive Order from US Pres Donald Trump wants wide changes to childhood vaccine recom-mendations. His plans would result in fewer vaccines being recommended overall; the combined measles, mumps and rubella/MMR vaccine being replaced with 3 separate vaccines, and all childhood immunisations being administered during separate medical visits widely spread out. Is there any science behind the Order? And what are the likely implications?

The main outcome could be parental uncertainty, American Academy Paediatrics said, with conflicting messages delaying vaccinations. Noting measles cases are already at a 35-year high in US, the concern was that with any extra delay, more children could be harmed with deadly vaccine-preventable diseases. Clearly an executive order has no legal effect on the public, but it’s likely to pressure US states to change vaccination requirements before children can attend schools. And it prepares for legal challenges against states that implemented their own vaccine recommendations.

The Order won’t be copied in other countries, said Prof  of Global Health & Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. No country wants to deal with the costly outbreak responses that occur, but the short-term risk is that non-USA parents get the false impression that the vaccines offered aren't safe. The long-term risk is that poor information will lead to lower vaccination rates in the nation, and the world will see a resurgence of previously prevented diseases. Finally non-vaccinated U.S children might visit other countries and spread diseases abroad.

Why did Trump do this? He’d often claimed that vaccinations causes autism and made the same link when signing this Order. After the Order, World Health Organisation-WHO reiterated the science-based process used to set child immunisation schedules in many nations. WHO told a press conference that vaccine schedules must be made by science experts, free of political control.

Do MMR vaccines cause autism? Prof Child Public Health at Uni College London found no link in any scientific studies; in fact the vaccine has saved millions of lives. False claims linking the MMR vaccine and autism were made by British Dr Andrew Wakefield in 1998 in Lancet Medical Journal. His paper was retracted and Wakefield was struck off the UK’s medical register. But he’s been lauded by anti-vaxxers and he attended Trump’s 1st inauguration.

Is there any science supporting the breaking up of MMR vaccines into separate injections? The 3 vaccines have never been administered as separate doses to young children in U.S policy, so that policy’s safety statements are untrue; just by delaying protection it could be a serious step backwards for protecting children’s health. Giving them separately.. leads to risking children’s health.

Prof Paediatrics at Bristol Uni asked would these proposals affect vaccination rates? Studies of communities with low vaccination rates typically find that, while hesitancy can be an issue, accessibility also plays a role eg getting children to many health appointments. Spacing vaccines across separate visits increases the likelihood of delayed or missed doses, leaving children susceptible for longer.

ACRC trials poster

Protect yourself and your family from measles with vaccinations

Instagram

Trump signed an Executive Order to limit childhood MMR vaccines, claiming a link between vaccines and autism. Decades ago children got only a small fraction of the vaccines required today, he said. In those times, people were much healthier and of course the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. The President has long cast doubt on the safety of MMR vaccines, even though studies found no connection between MMR vaccines and autism.

Medical experts criticised Trump’s Order, saying it could reduce vaccination rates & expose children to disease. The Order recommends that the number of childhood vaccines drop to 11 from today's 18, given by American Academy of Paediatrics: measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, chicken pox etc. Trump's Order isn't as a mandate, since injections required for school attendance are set by the states, not by the federal government.

Trump stated the MMR vaccine could be quite lethal if given at once, comparing it to pouring a bottle of soda into a child's body. FDA noted a single dose of MMR is 0.5ml so when a reporter asked for evidence of the lethal claim, Trump said What I've heard is that there are some people that say it is that way. We're reducing the vaccines, and they’ll be done in a series of visits to the doctor.

Paediatrician prepares to administer a measles vaccination

during Washington's outbreak

Mother Jones

Centres for Disease Control and Prevention/CDC reported the MMR vaccine carries little risk of febrile seizures for todd-lers; those with health issues eg severe allergies should consult doctors beforehand. Getting the vaccine has proven much safer than getting measles/mumps/rubella. CDC found no published scientific evidence that shows any benefit in separating the mixed MMR vaccine into 3 individual shots. Experts say that allowing time between injections makes children more likely to contract diseases then or more likely to miss later appointments. (I’ve the best memory in this nation yet embarrassingly I forgot to return for my 6th Covid injection!!). Nashville’s Vanderbilt Uni School of Medicine reported the more future bookings made, the harder for doctors to track, plus it would add to expenses.

Trump officials have said the order means U.S children would receive fewer than the number recommended by the existing vaccine schedule. Pres of American Academy of Paediatrics Dr Racine said Trump's Order was not based on quality science. Delaying injections is risky; measles will spread once children go back to school.

A Danish 2002 MMR Study, in New England Journal Medicine, tracked 537,303 children born 1991-8. Another nationwide cohort study evaluated 657,461 children born 1999-2010, carefully looking at children with high-risk factors. The 2025 study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, analysed data from 1.2 million+ children born 1997–2018. The three Danish studies found no association, reaffirming that the MMR vaccine does not increase autism risk.

It's not my business what other nations do, but I have 3 first cousins in US & would be devastated if their babies died.

My favourite books 2006 Vs now

I can remember nearly every novel set by English teachers in high school (1960-65) . But when I recently found a 2006 newspaper article discussing my reading preferences, I couldn't remember the era when my children still lived at home. This newspaper article covered the books I most loved in the decades from 1975-2005.

  

Book column

Australian Jewish News

Melbourne March 2006

 

The Women's Room is the first novel

by American author Marilyn French,

published in 1977.

These days I read big, beautifully written and glossy books that I leave on the family room table to impress family and friends. And because they are too heavy and expensive to carry around. My three best current examples are: Palazzi of Rome, by Cresti and Rendina, published by Konemann, 1998; Patrons and Painters, Art and Society in Baroque Italy by Haskell, published by Yale UP 1980 and The Library, a World History, by Campbell and Pryce, Chicago UP, 2013. 

If any reader is interested in the book I would like for my next birthday, I suggest Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes by Le Corbusier, Mardges Bacon, Prof Barry Bergdoll (contribs) et al, Museum of Modern Art, 2013  :)

Captain Eric Ravilious, WW2 art

London-born Eric Ravilious (1903-42) spent his early years in Eastbourne E. Sussex and won a scholarship to attend the Eastbourne School of Art in 1919. Later he enrolled at Royal College of Art London where he studied under Paul Nash, a War Artist in WW1. Later Ravilious worked as a painter, book illustrator and Wedgwood pottery designer.

With war starting in 1939, he joined the Royal Observer Corps based in Castle Hedingham Essex. Ravilious was one of the first official War Artists to be appointed by War Artists Advisory Committee-WAAC in Dec 1939, and in 1940 as a Captain. Established by the Ministry of Information, WAAC was a government body commissioning artists to record WW2 events. From 1940-2, Ravilious produced dramatic water colours & drawings of ships, aircraft and coastal defences, 50 of them now in the Imperial War Museums/IWM. 

A warship in dock, 1940

In Feb 1940, Ravilious was posted to Chatham Dockyard Kent to document the naval barracks’ factories & buildings. In A Warship in Dock 1940, Ravilious showed the bow of a destroyer in a flooded dry dock, tied down with many ropes. A man on deck holds one of the ropes while three other men board the ship via a gang-way on the port side. Shown from ground level, the warship looks menacing with angular marine camouflage and intimidating colossal scale. In the background there were many structures eg a ship crane and a factory with a smoking chimney. Despite the scene’s calming water in the flooded dock and vivid blue of the sky overhead, they were preparing for a country at war.

After Germany invaded Norway in Ap 1940, seizing Oslo and the main ports, the Allied forces tried to counter-attack on land but were under-equipped and out-numbered. In May troop evacuation from the Narvik port, Operation Alphabet, was authorised. Aircraft carriers HMS Glorious and HMS Ark Royal left Scapa Flow in Scotland in late May to assist with the withdrawal, escorted by 5 destroyers.

Ravilious was aboard HMS Highlander where the carrier’s dazzling camouflage was mimicked in the sea under the Arctic light. RAF Hurricanes from 2 squadrons flew around, riskily preparing to land on the deck of HMS Glorious, evacuated from the Norwegian Air Station. Next day HMS Glorious returned to Scapa Flow but was attacked by German battleships and sunk. 1,500+ souls tragically died.

Coastal Defences, 1940

The artist travelled to E.Newhaven Sussex in late 1940, to paint coastal defences. The port was targeted in Operation Sea Lion, a planned invasion of Britain by German forces, and needed heavy fortific-ation. In this scene, he depicted the semi-circular curve of the Coastline Defences 1940 in dark greens and blues, colours repeated in the sea and sky. In contrast, the searchlight was stark white, cutting through the night sky looking for enemy aircraft. See a row of boats speeding out to sea at the centre of the scene, leaving a stream of white as they moved in the water. The constant threat to Newhaven from above and below was clear.

He showed the moment a 9.2” naval gun fired from Dover's front port, a portrayal of spectacle and awe. A group of 5 artillerymen were shown as ghost-like figures, compared to the luscious greens of the front landscape. Ravilious spent mid 1941 in Dover before moving to Dundee Scotland.

Ravilious arrived at the Royal Naval Air Station/RNAS in Dundee in autumn 1941 and was quickly interested in the Supermarine Walrus seaplane. In this scene, 3 Walrus aircraft were floating on the river outside the station’s sick bay. The artist showed the interior which was not overly comfortable; just for convalescence. But the blue and white bedding with anchor motif conveyed a sense of homeliness in this stark environment. During his time at the RNAS, the pilots allowed Ravilious to fly in the air craft. After he successfully transferred from the Admiralty to the RAF.

De-Icing Aircraft, 1942

In March 1942 Ravilious was based at RAF Clifton airfield in York. He enjoyed flying over the city, observing York Minster from above and spotting abbeys and ruins. In De-Icing Aircraft 1942, Ravilious showed the airfield under endless snow. Men were scraping the ice layers from the wing of a de Havilland Dragon Rapide, a twin-engine biplane used for training purposes. Each engine had a fitted cover, protecting against harsh temperatures. And see another plane’s tail also covered in ice & snow, waiting to be fixed by the crew.

5 Spitfires at Sawbridgeworth, 1942.

In Mar 1942, Eric Ravilious’ wife and fellow artist Tirzah Garwood developed serious health problems, returning towards home. He went to RAF Sawbridgeworth Airfield Herts which was relatively close to their family home. Despite his terrible living conditions, Ravilious enjoyed painting everyday life on the airfield in early 1942, including aircraft in flight, never using oil paints in the war. Ravilious depicted Five Spitfires at Sawbridgeworth, 1942 at the base, but Spitfires were not at the site then.

Operation Room, 1942

Operations Room 1942 was a key war painting, acquired by IWM decades later. The watercolour depicted the interior of the airfield’s mobile operations room. It is decorated with light yellows and blue-greens, synonymous with functional WW2 buildings. Relaxing colour palettes were selected to be easy for workers inside for long periods. Large windows enabled a panoramic view of the airfield and a sector clock hung on the wall helped track air craft movements. There was no human in The Operations Room but human activity was detected; pinned notices under the clock, writing pen and ink on one table, and a blue reference folder on the other. Interestingly while at Sawbridgeworth, Ravilious wrote to his wife Tirzah in May 1942 stating “the weather gets finer all the time but I’m bored of pictures of planes on the ground and want to go flying.”

Ravilious soon flew to Reykjavik, driving to the RAF Kaldadarnes Airfield in Sept. From there he & 4 airmen flew on a rescue mission in a Lockheed Hudson and were lost off the Icelandic coast. Because his body wasn’t recovered, he had no grave; instead he was honoured at Chatham Navel Memorial Kent (above). Ravilious was one of three War Artists who died when his plane crashed, at 39. 

Thank you to the Imperial War Museum for the artworks and to the BBC for history.

UK's C19th model village: Saltaire

Titus Salt (1803-76) was born near Leeds, educated in Wakefield and served an apprenticeship with a wool-stapler in Wakefield. He moved to Bradford in 1821 with his parents & siblings at 18. In his years in Bradford he worked with William Rouse & Son, learning textile manufacture.

Titus’s father, Daniel, founded a Bradford business as a wool-stapler. In 1824, Titus joined his dad’s business, Daniel Salt and Son, expanding with a spinning business in Thornton Rd in 1834. By then Bradford was a magnet for people seeking work or a business; the city experienced a 78% population growth in 30 years due to the raw-wool-cloth industry. Alas Bradford mills flooded untreated industrial waste. 

Mill, Tripadvisor

In 1835 Titus Salt established his own business. He’d already used Eastern European wool and had secretly experimented with alpaca wool. By 1837 he found that by using alpaca as the weft, and cotton as the warp, he could produce fairly priced, durable lustrous cloth. He was the first maker of the new cloth & greatly expanded his Bradford business.

But to escape the polluted, crowded Bradford slums for greener pastures, he decided to relocate his business and his employees. Local architects Henry Lockwood & Richard Mawson planned a new community where Salt’s work force would be healthier, happier and productive. Work began in 1851 and continued for decades. Salt planned for a wide range of public buildings and amenities, so work soon started on Saltaire’s industrial community. In Aug 1854 Lockwood & Mawson hired contractors in the local press to erect a large dining hall opposite the mill with offices & kitchen. The Dining Hall fed the mill’s workforce, who lived outside.

The vast efficient textile factory was the first building done. Moved by Bradford workers’ poor lives and his religion, Salt created an industrial town in rural surroundings, named from Salt and from the River Aire in the village.

Titus purchased land near Shipley and the Mill opened with fanfare Sept 1853, Salt’s 50th birthday. The mill took in raw materials, to scour, wash, comb, draw, spin and weave, design and finish them into high quality cloth. Its 3,000 workers could produce 30,000 yards of cloth daily.

Workers' cottages, Wiki

 
Then they designed the entire village in a classical style a la Italian Renaissance. The Salts Mill and the decent houses were built from 1851-71 to allow workers to live decently, locating a large textile mill near Leeds-Liverpool Canal & railway; thus his raw materials and finished goods could be easily moved. Salt planned his workers’ village with public buildings that looked impressive and well designed for purpose. Lockwood & Mawson planned a new community where Salt’s workforce would be healthier, happier & productive. Work began 1851, until 1876. A vast and modern textile factory, the Mill, was ready first - Lockwood & Mawson designed it all. The finest work was Congregational Church, set in a spacious landscaped garden. The new church was opened in Ap 1859, a precious Victorian gem. It boasts important architectural and historical features; now the United Reformed Church is set in landscaped gardens.

Congregational Church, and later United Reformed Church 

Real Yorkshire Blog

In 1886 Titus Salt Jr proposed an Arts Exhibition that could raise funds for a new building for Art-Science education & to honour dad. The Exhibition Building was completed in 1887. It housed 14 large class rooms, central hall and gallery:  Institute of Technology and now a site for Shipley College.

The Mausoleum built onto the church has Titus' remains. Although a committed Congregationalist, Titus was not restrictive about religious worship in his town. He didn't compel his workforce to attend a church. In Oct 1866, laying a stone for a new Wesleyan Chapel was celebrated. 

Factory School, opened 1868

now Shipley College Salts Building, x.com

The lofty hall gave space for the Factory School, church services, Sunday school, reading room & library. There was space for 500+ to attend social events, concerts, lectures on current issues & celebrations. The Factory Schools opened in 1868 on Victoria Rd, for 750 people. The classrooms had central heating, gas lighting and fitted cupboards.

Playgrounds behind the schools included covered areas for bad weather. Titus and his son Titus Jr were modern thinkers in establishing quality education, but the new school’s capacity was soon insufficient to meet children's needs. Space was made available for art and science education in the Saltaire Club and Institute opposite the schools.

Victoria Hall, Alarmy

Salt Schools on Victoria Rd, Institute and Victoria Hall were built by John Barry, opening 1871. The facilities were huge, containing a lecture hall seating 800, classrooms, 2 art rooms, chess rooms, laboratory, gym, library of 8,500 books, reading room and concert venue; their task was to provide a social club and an educational institute to supply the advantages of a public house without its evils. Its ornamental belltower is seen throughout the village. Titus was keen to see adults self-improving. Building the Factory Schools was followed by a grand project opposite the new school.

Salt Hospital, with hospital marker under top window

later converted to flats

2 storeyed Salt Hospital in Victoria Rd had an Infirmary and Dispensary, 6 beds and a surgery. As demand for its services grew, it began to provide treatment for the local community plus for mill workers, closing in 1979 to become flats.

The residential area covered 25+ acres, eventually consisting of 21 streets, 2 roads, 2 terraces & 4 places. 850 quality houses of varying sizes (2-7 bedrooms) were built in William Henry St, house occupancy dependant on ability to pay the graded rents. The houses ranged widely, all superior to working-class houses in nearby Bradford & Shipley. They had a proper drainage system; water & gas were supplied to each house, and each had a back yard and a private toilet. The streets were open-ended to let in sun and air. The shops included grocers, chemist, post office, butchers, hardware shops and retail facilities. Once complete, the village comprised 800+ high quality homes, two churches, school, park, adult education institute, hospital, baths, washhouse and 45 almshouses for the aged or infirmed, fronted by a peaceful trees and plants. Almhouse residents were selected by Salt in his lifetime and later by a board of trustees: these tenants lived rent free and received a weekly pension. 

Salt later improved conditions eg impressive Victoria Rd School site 1869. Rich outer architecture honoured educ-ation and the classes suited the 750 pupils. This big building was soon outgrown by Saltaire’s booming population. The Salt family lobbied for a new school and by 1878 it had been built. Not as charming, but big enough to cope with demand. This school is now part of Shipley College, Victoria Rd. Its Italianate richly carved architecture has columned loggias, round-topped windows, overhanging eaves, turret & school bell. The centre displays Salt’s coat of arms in a roundel surrounded by laurel leaves, scrolls and relief carvings. The school was for workers’ children, parks, boats and games. Leisure activities included a boys’ drum-&-fife band and brass band for village men. Titus Jr & wife strongly wanted education for the under-5s, leading to a separate pre-school.

With quality housing, employment, recreation, educational facilities and social services, the model town became an example of progressive C19th urban planning. The building was nearly done in 1871 when the census showed Saltaire had 755 houses and 45 alms houses, for 4,389 people.

Titus died in 1876 and was interred in the mausoleum beside the Congregational church. When his son Titus Salt Jr died in 1887, Saltaire was taken over by a partnership including Sir James Roberts from Haworth. Roberts had worked in wool mills since he was 11, had sizable business interests in Russia. Roberts came to own Saltaire, but chose to invest his money heavily in Russia, losing much money in the Russian Revolution. He endowed a chair of Russian at Leeds Uni and bought the Brontës' Haworth Parsonage for the nation. Roberts died in 1935 and was buried at Fairlight Sussex.

Saltaire Park, later Roberts Park

National Lottery Heritage Fund

Saltaire Park across the River Aire opened in C19th, designed and laid out by William Gay. The name changed in 1920 to Roberts Park when the second owner, Sir James Roberts, gifted the park to the local Council to honour his late son. The park, a key element of the model village, offered many leisure activities for the worker eg archery, croquet, cricket and pavilions. The northern portion has windy paths, landscaped gardens, pavilions, East Park lodge, promenade with shelters and Salt’s statue. And the original bandstand.

Saltaire retained ownership of the Mill until it was sold to Bradford Property Trust, 1933. The new owners arranged with Shipley Urban District Council for improvements eg new gas services, mains electricity, sewerage & sanitary services. It included a scheme to eliminate the waste-water toilets and the old type of coal store, and to erect new facilities, requiring the removal of 43 houses to open the village. In 2014 planning officers replaced front doors for historic ones.

Saltaire was selected for the World Heritage List in Dec 2001 and Europe’s Route of Industrial Heritage website as a fine example of a C19th model town demonstrating the social and economic impact of the textile industry. And it was recognised for its global influence on town planning. The model village’s buildings are individually listed with UNESCO, the highest honour going to Congregational church. UNESCO protects natural and cultural sites of global importance.

Salts Mill closed Feb 1986; Jonathan Silver bought it in 1987 to convert into a multi-functional site with an art gallery, cafes & technology company HQs. The art gallery had large rooms for Bradford-born artist David Hockney: paintings, drawings, photos, stagesets. Then book shops, art supplies, jewellery, sportswear, antiques, bicycles and housewares.

The Saltaire Collection in Shipley College has special books, documents, photos & historical objects. Note the research into residents/workers, the Salt & James Roberts families who built and sustained Salts Mill; photos & documents related to working in the mill and living in the village; legal and business documents; personal memoirs; maps; and crockery for Royal visits. The History Club has great lectures.

Saltaire, on the map of England

Credit: Salt & Light

In 2003 Saltaire Festival celebrated the city’s 150th anniversary, now held in Sept; Saltaire Arts Trail is a visual arts festival held in May. Credit to City of Bradford.

Triangle Shirt Fact­ory NY fire tragedy 1911.

Shirtwaist designs, The Modern Priscilla Needlework Magazine, 1906

5 Minute History

Russians Max Blanck and Isaac Harris immigrated to the U.S in the early 1890s and, like hundreds of thousands of other impoverish­ed Jew­ish im­migrants, they began working in the garment industry in sweat­shops. Har­ris became familiar with popular fashion designs while Blanck became a garment contractor. They made a partner­ship, founding the Triangle Waist Co in 1900. In time, The Triangle Shirt­waist Fact­ory was located in the top 3 floors of the Asch Building in Manhattan. They hired 500 work­ers, mostly female Jewish and Italian immigrants, half of them teens. It was a true sweat­shop; the immigrants worked in a cramped space at lines of sewing machines for 12 hours a day. These young women worked 6-7 days a week for tiny wages and little ventilation. The male owners gave male workers the higher-paid jobs, ass­uming women were less skilled.

In 1909, the USA was advancing towards greater mass production and in­creasingly dangerous working conditions. That year the Uprising of 20,000 Strike was organised mainly by Yiddish-speaking garment workers female due to their horrid conditions, long hours and low wages. Their primary motive was to get attention paid to the mist­r­eat­­ment of imm­igrant work­ers. While there were short term agreements to meet their dem­ands, the strike ultimately failed. How­ever it DID succeed some­what in exposing poor working conditions. Progressives and unionists cal­l­ed for different reforms, but Tammany Hall opposed them; the polit­ical machine stalled any legislation that might have benefitted the workers.

Fire danger in factories was common, but corruption in both the industry and city government generally ensured that few useful precautions were taken. The Triangle factory was burned in 1907 and in 1910, the owners appar­ently torching their own work­places before business hours in order to collect on the large fire-insurance policies they purchased, a not unknown practice in the early C20th. While this did not cause the 1911 fire, it contr­ibuted to the tragedy, as Blanck & Harris refused to install sprinkler systems.

Women workers pre-fire

Barbara's Bookstore

 

In 1911 Triangle Shirt­waist Fact­ory had 4 elevators accessing the fact­ory floors, but only one was fully operational and the workers had to go along a narrow corridor to reach it. There were two stairways down to the street, but they were locked from the outside to prevent the workers steal­ing.

The fire escape was so narrow, it would have taken hours for all the workers to use it, even if it had not burned down.

In Mar 1911, there were 600 workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fact­ory when a fire began in a material bin. The manager tried using the fire hose to extin­guish it, but the hose was rotted and its valve rust­ed shut. The fire spread and panic ensued. The young workers tried to exit the building by the elevator but it only held 12 people and the operator could only make four trips before it stopped in flames. Young women bec­ame trapped by bulky equipment as flames enveloped the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building. As people struggled to escape, sev­eral fell into the flames, their bodies piling by blocked exits. In a desper­ate at­tempt to escape, the girls still waiting for the elev­ator plunged down the shaft to their deaths. The girls who fled via the stairwells found the locked door at the bottom of the stairs, and were burned alive.

Fire­fighters arrived & saw their lad­ders reached only 7 floors high but the fire was on the 8th floor. So the girls who did not make it to the stairwells or elevator were trapped by the fire inside the fact­ory; they began jumping from the wind­ows to es­cape and died on the conc­rete below. Within 20 mins they found 49 workers burned to death, 36 died in the elevator shaft, 58 died from jumping from the 8th floor and 3 more died in hospital. 146 people were killed altogether.

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union had fought for better working con­dit­ions for all sweatshop workers. The union didn’t gain real attention until after the Triangle Waist Co owners were indicted for first degree manslaughter, but were found to be not guilty by the grand jury. To settle lawsuits against them, the owners DID pay $75 in compen­sat­ion to each victim’s family, a frac­t­ion of the $400 per death that they were paid by their insurer.

Nonetheless the tragedy led to the growth of a series of laws and regu­l­ations that better protected workers’ safety. The fire unified organised labour and reforming polit­icians like N.Y Gov. Alfred Smith and Sen Ro­b­­ert Wagner, a le­g­isl­ator in Pres Franklin D Roosevelt’s (1933–45) New Deal agenda. And the Factory Investig­ating Comm­ission in N.Y was set up af­t­er the fire. The workers union set up a march on 5th Ave NY to prot­est the conditions that had led to the fire, attended by 80,000 people.

The huge death toll for which they were responsible DID finally compel the city to enact reform. The Fire Prevention Law passed, and N.Y Democrats took up the workers’ cause; both were crucial in lim­iting similar disasters in the future.

Desperate women threw themselves down from the 8th storey to death

New York Herald

March 1911

Conclusion 

In this era, progressive movements sought to red­uce the impacts of the deplorable working conditions brought by industr­ial­­is­ation and inequality between rich and poor. The 1911 day became the deadliest indust­rial disas­ter in Manhattan history, when 123 women and 23 men died. Workers, union leaders, progressive reformers and political lead­ers all begged for higher environmental standards fitting for US. The Triangle Factory fire DID help create laws for a better workplace to keep employ­ees safer, but at an unthinkable cost for the immigrant families.

Tolpuddle Martyrs tried to save workers

6 English farm labourers who were sentenced in March 1834 to 7 years’ transportation to an Australian penal colony for organising trade-union activities in Tolpuddle Dorset. Leaders George & James Loveless created a Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers’ lodge during the national wave of trade-union activity in 1833–4. The Whig government, alarmed at working-class discontent, arrested the Tolpuddle labourers for administering unlawful oaths: Loveless brothers, James Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Stanfield and his son John. Actually their crime was combining to protect their miserable wages. Convicted and sentenced by a hostile judge and jury, transportation was brutal.

Shire Hall was Dorset’s courthouse until 1955

inc 1834 trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs

Shire Hall, Dorset

From smoky, stinking cell below Dorchester's Court, the convicts were taken in chains to the Portsmouth prison-hulks. Hulks were condemned ships, holding 500-600 prisoners who were given coarse convict clothing and heavy irons riveted to their legs. Disease was rampant; cholera, dysentery and smallpox swept through the packed masses, resulting in tragic deaths in such fetid ships. 5 of the men were shipped in vile conditions to NSW where they were assigned as convict labour to landowners. George Loveless was too ill to travel after trial but by Ap 1834 he was declared fit and soon sailed to Tasmania.

poster, what year?

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum Shop

Each Martyr described his experience of transportation in the Horrors of  Transportation. George Loveless wrote: “To enumerate the various miseries and evils which prisoners are subjected to, from landing in the colony until their death, is dreadful in the extreme. James Brine wrote: “I was employed to dig post-holes, and having walked so far without shoes, my feet were so cut I could not put them to the spade. I got a piece of an iron hoop and wrapped round my foot to tread upon, for six months. I went without shoes, clothes or bedding, and slept on the bare ground”.

Yet in U.K the men became popular heroes! There was an immediate public react-ion across the country, esp in London, where there were large demonstrations. The government largely ignored popular sentiment, and it was not until Mar 1836 that the sentences were remitted. News of the punishment spread and the UK fledgling unions knew their existence was under attack. They had to overturn the sentence and win the right to organise. Unknown to the 6 farm workers in Australia, their case was being taken to Parliament and onto London’s streets.

As news of the sentence spread, the young trade union movement organised a re-lease campaign. In Mar 1834, there was a meeting called by the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union at leader of the Grand Consolidated Union Robert Owen’s planning. 10,000+ people arrived! The agitation spread and The London Central Dorchester Committee formed to campaign for the pardon. A huge rally was held Ap 1834 when c100,000 people met near King’s Cross London. Fearing chaos, the Government took strong control: Lifeguards, Household Cavalry, detachments of Lancers, 2 troops of Dragoons, 8 battalions of infantry and 29 cannons were mustered. 5,000+ special constables were sworn into this “armed camp”.

By 7am protesters gathered by trade union stewards on horse. A grand parade with banners marched to Parliament. Citizens lining the streets & crowding the rooftops cheered. At Whitehall the petition, carried on unionists’ shoulders, was taken to the Home Sec Lord Melbourne’s office. He hid and didn’t accept the petition! The Government resisted, but agitation for the men’s release mounted. MPs questioned Parliament often; petitions came with 800,000+ signatures.

By mid 1835, 10 months after arriving in penal colonies, conditional pardons had been granted by Home Secretary Lord John Russell. But Russell was premature; legally a convict could not be conditionally pardoned under 4 years. The mail between Whitehall and Sydney & Hobart caused confusion and delay.

Book by Doc H Evatt, 1937

federal parliamentary leader of Labour Party

MP Wakeley presented 16 petitions to Parliament! The Tolpuddle men refused to accept conditional pardons and the Government finally agreed in Mar 1836 to a full pardon. By the King! Months passed before orders to free the men reached the Australian authorities but the farm workers would be coming home from penal colonies as free men!!

Few sent to the penal colonies ever returned, because they died OR couldn’t afford the journey home. The Martyrs didn’t return home until years after the infamous Trial. George Loveless was the first to arrive back in the UK in June 1837, welcomed by the London Dorchester Committee. George slipped quietly into Tolpuddle where he wrote The Victims of Whiggery, a strong statement against bad employment practices, and the profits went to the families.

James Loveless, James Brine, Thomas and John Standfield sailed by ship in Sept 1837. They were delayed in New Zealand as the ship took timber onboard, so exactly 4 years post-trial, the ship anchored in Plymouth Sound. People flocked to greet them from the quay and they were taken to an Inn before moving to the prominent local trade unionist James Keast’s home. The Committee of Trades organised a public welcome in March in Plymouth’s Mechanics Institute. The men went by coach to Exeter where another public meeting was held. They stayed in Dorchester at an inn with new clothes, then went to London for a grand Easter dinner at White Conduit House with c2,000 people.

James Hammett was the last returnee, arriving at New House Farm in Aug 1839. He was given a public welcome in Sept at the Victoria Theatre/Old Vic. Hammett did not write his experiences; he was the only one with a criminal record pre-arrest and he fell foul of the law in NSW. He remained in Tolpuddle, quitting farm work to become a builder’s labourer. His life story only emerged in 1875 when he was honoured by the Agricultural Labourers’ Union leader. 

Tolpuddle Martyrs plaque London Ontario, 2014

Wiki Commons

The London Dorchester Committee raised funds with public support to buy farms leases in Essex for the returning men. Five still campaigned for working men’s rights, supporting the Chartist movement. They organised a Chartist association in Greensted, based on The People’s Charter: 1. Manhood Suffrage 2. secret voting 3. MP payments 4. Annual Parliaments and 5. Equal electoral districts.

The Greensted Vicar in Essex preached against the Chartists’ activities, saying: the foundations of decent society were being undermined; paternal order where all knew his proper place had to be restored. He alerted the Home Office. Essex Standard said “George Loveless, instead of quietly fulfilling his station, is still dabbling in the dirty waters of radicalism and publishing pamphlets to keep up the old game”. Pressure from landowners forced the others to seek lives in Ontario Canada, as farmers.

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum, Wiki

Portland stone sculpture in front by Dagnall, 2001

Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum was a library in Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Memorial Cottages, built 1934. The library had a collection of historical documents & collectables but in time, a display telling the Martyrs' story made it into a Museum about workers’ rights, trade unionism and human freedoms.

Edgar Degas, impressionist or modernist?

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was born in Paris, son of banker Augustin De Gas. At 11 Degas enrolled in Lycée Louis-le-Grand, graduating in 1853. He was painting seriously and by 18, his bedroom became an artist's studio. He began making copies in the Louvre, but his father wanted him to study. So Degas enrolled in Law at Paris Uni in Nov 1853 but was bored. In 1855, Degas met Jean Auguste Ingres whom he revered. In Ap that year, Degas enrolled at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied drawing & flourished. In Jul 1856 Degas moved to Italy for 3 years, copying Renaissance art.

After returning home, Degas continued copying paintings at the Louvre, still remained a keen copyist. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, attracting little attention. Although he exhibited annually in the Salon for 4 years, he submitted no more history paintings; his Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (1866 Salon) signalled a new commitment to modernity. The change in his art was influenced by Édouard Manet who he met in the Louvre.

Degas, Cotton Office in New Orleans, 

1873, Wiki

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When the Franco-Prussian War erupted in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard, defending Paris. During rifle training, his eyes were damaged. Post-war Degas enjoyed a long stay (from 1872) in New Orleans LA where his brother René and other relatives lived. One of Degas' New Orleans works, Cotton Exchange at New Orleans, won positive notice in France. Note it was his only work purchased by a museum during his lifetime!

Impressionism emerged in the 1860s, and grew in part from the realism of men like Courbet and Corot. The Impressionists painted the world's realities using notable colours, concentrating mainly on light effects. Degas hurt the Impressionists when he constantly belittled their en plein air art. He was anti-Impressionism, just like the critics who reviewed their shows, saying: What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; I know nothing of spontaneity. See his Parisian scenes, off-centre compositions, experiments with colour & form, and friendship with key Impressionists.

Degas returned to Paris in 1873. Alas his father died and in settling the estate, it was found that brother René had amassed huge business debts. To preserve the family name, Degas had to sell his house and a collection of art he’d inherited. He suddenly found himself dependent on his own art sales for income. By now very unhappy with the Salon, Degas joined forces with young artists who were organising an Independent Art Society. Their first Impressionist Exhibitions started in 1874,  and they later held 7 additional shows until 1886.

Degas’ distinct style showed his respect for the old masters and his admiration for Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. And he liked the vigorous realism of popular illustrators. When he became famous for horses and dancers, his treatment of traditional historical subjects became less idealised. Degas already showed the mature style that he would later develop more, by cropping subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual views. By late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his initial history paintings to contemporary life.

 
The artist organised the shows and displayed his style in all of them, despite conflicting with other group members. He had little in common with Monet & other landscape artists whom he mocked for painting outside. Conservative socially, he disliked the scandal created by the shows, plus the publicity that his colleagues sought. He rejected the name Impressionist that the press popularised, and his insistence on having traditional artists in the shows annoyed the group, disbanding in 1886. As his financial situation improved via selling his own works, he was keen to collect works by old masters eg El Greco, and moderns eg Manet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Loved artists, Ingres & Delacroix, were well represented.

The Ballet Class, c1875

Wiki

The Dancing Class, 1870s

The French Desk

Degas became isolated, due partly to his belief that an artist could have no personal life. The Dreyfus Affair (1894->) brought his anti-Semitism to the fore and he separated from all his Jewish friends. His interest in portraiture led him to study the ways in which peoples’ social stature and employment type were revealed in their features, posture & dress. In Portraits At the Stock Exchange 1879, he anti-Semitically showed a group of Jewish businessmen. With his athletic dancers and solid laundresses painting, he revealed their occupations by their dress, activities and body type.

His subject matter & his technique changed. The dark palette displaying Dutch art’s influence gave way to colour use and bold brush strokes. Place de la Concorde 1875 “froze” to portray them accurately, seeing movement. The changes to his palette, brushwork & composition displayed the influence that both Impressionism’s & photography’s natural images had.

Jockeys, 1881

all that's good

Race horses, 1884

While visiting a childhood friend in Normandy, Degas made his first studies of horses. Then his treatment of traditional historical subjects became idealised. Degas did racing scenes throughout his career, using his horses and jockeys from one picture to the next. All the figures had been in earlier works and some of the poses were quite distinguished. The prancing mount and rider derived from Benozzo Gozzoli's Journey in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Florence, which Degas copied earlier. Yet this picture was unusual for its medium—pastel, colouring the sky and landscape, & giving a warm undertone in front. Race course scenes allowed Degas to depict horses and riders in a modern context.

Laundry Girls Ironing, 1884

WikiArt

When he painted working women eg milliners & laundresses, his treatment of traditional historical subjects became less idealised. Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in Ballet La Source, in the 1868 Salon, was his first major work to introduce his favourite models: dancers. In many later paintings, dancers were shown backstage or rehearsing, focusing on their status as working professionals. Degas also began to paint café life. He urged other artists to paint real life instead of traditional mythological or historical art, and his few literary scenes were modern. By the later 1870s Degas had mastered not only the traditional oils, but also pastels. The dry medium enabled him to reconcile his interest in line and in expressive colour. In the mid-1870s he returned to etching and less traditional printmaking.

These changes in media engendered the paintings that Degas produced in later life. Degas drew and painted women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair and bathing. The backgrounds were simplified.

Except for his skilled draftsmanship and obsession with figures, his later work bore little resemblance to his early era. Ironically the works created after the heyday of the Impressionist movement that most obviously used the colouristic techniques of Impressionism. Certain features of Degas's work remained for life. He always painted indoors, working IN his studio using models. The figure remained his primary subject; his landscapes were produced from memory or imagination. His works were prepared, calculated, practised and developed in stages.

Public reception of Degas' work included both admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, Degas had a few works accepted in the Salon in the early years. These works received praise from some French critics. But Degas soon joined forces with the Impressionists and rejected the rigid rules, judgements, and elitism of the Salon. The Salon initially rejected the experimentalism of the Impressionists!

Degas' work was controversial, but in time it was admired for its draftsmanship. The nudes Degas exhibited in the 8th Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist in his lifetime. ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory." Little Dancer of Fourteen Years was probably his most controversial piece, with some critics said they saw ugliness.

He was a key artist late in life, esp by his great admirer Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; it was his lively creation of daily activities and his bold colours that urged him into late Impressionism. But his paintings, pastels, drawings & sculptures weren’t intended for exhibition. Degas had no formal pupils, although he did influence painters like Mary Cassatt & Walter Sickert. He was working more, only ceasing his art in 1912. With demolition of his home, he spent the last years of his life, single and nearly blind, wandering Paris streets. Degas died in 1917. His paintings were discovered only after post-death, now prominently displayed in important museums.

Lutetia Hotel, French culture German WW2

The Lutetia hotel was one of Paris’ landmarks, a monument to the city’s cultural memory where art, history and luxury met. In Dec 1910 Lutetia was opened by Marguerite and Aristide Boucicaut, visionary founders of Le Bon Marché. They created a hotel to welcome the department store’s wealthy clientele and reflect the cosmopolitan Left Bank. The result was unlike any other in Paris: a fusion of Art Nouveau exuberance and nascent Art Deco restraint, its grand façade with sculptural reliefs.

front entrance and facade

 

Lutetia always attracted the elite, wealthy visitors, artists, intellectuals and writers who helped define C20th culture. James Joyce corrected proofs of Ulysses inside, Picasso, Matisse and André Gide were regulars and Josephine Baker gave jazz rhythm to its salons. A unique blend of high society and arty avant-garde!

Author Jane Rogoyska focused on this fashionable grand hotel from 1933-45 in Hotel Exile. She wrote of the hotel’s war events before, in and after the German occupation of France. She wrote of the destruction of German & Austrian culture, once the Nazis seized power in 1933.

Germans forced into exile in France included many literary stars of Habsburg Vienna & Weimar Republic: Heinrich & Thomas Mann, Berthold Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Alfred Kerr, Hannah Arendt, Joseph Roth, Franz Werfel & Stefan Zweig and James Joyce. They escaped with their lives but mostly lost their livelihoods. In Paris they lived in solitude or in cheap hotels. They also faced the hostility of French bureaucracy against Germans.

In 1935, a millionaire genius of international communism Willi Münzenberg led the Lutetia Committee. Despite his leadership (supported by E.M Forster & Aldous Huxley), no German Popular Front emerged and alliance between communists & social democrats ended in Aug 1939 with the Nazi-Soviet pact. The leader of the French communists, Maurice Thorez welcomed Der Pakt as a stroke of genius on Stalin’s part that would avert another European war.

WW2 broke out later when many of the exiles had already managed to re-escape to U.S, UK or Switzerland and the German army occupied Paris. This hotel was soon controlled by Abwehr-German Military Intelligence Service (in 1940), a German organisation standing on the Nazi regime fringes. Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian Jewish communist, joined the Foreign Legion to escape the bureaucrats who interned him. But eventually some exiles, inspired by Heinrich Mann, risked fighting back by forming Lutetia Committee of Germany’s Popular Front against Fascism. They met in the elegant Lutetia salons.

Colonel Friedrich Rudolph decided to requisition the French staff, as well as the hotel. The concierge, cooks, waiters and chambermaids continued to serve their German “guests” with their normal respect, and Manager Marcel Chappaz ensured everyone’s comfort. Abwehr commanders stayed until the end. They regrouped in Berlin, where Col Rudolph was gaoled re a July plot to assassinate Hitler.

Meanwhile the political deportees were registered in reception, where the hotel staff were assisted by boy scouts. Many of their patients were the true heroes of France’s war, all that remained of that small minority who had found the courage to fight back after the military debacle of 1940. The survivors returned in a terrible state, here described in vivid detail. Some were wasted with lice or contagious with typhus or TB. Some Lutetia’s staff died following contact with the first postwar guests who they said nothing.

cocktails

Rogoyska’s thoroughly researched account, using secondary sources, is a little less convincing when she generalises about events beyond the hotel’s revolving doors. The Abwehr’s effectiveness in Occupied France was not notably hindered by the dominant role given to rival SS-SD. In any case, the hotel became a place of surveillance and control, not murders. In fact fear of being handed over to the Gestapo gave the Abwehr interrogators a very persuasive argument. Nor did the Gestapo’s brutality lead to an increase in volunteering for the French Resistance. All the Abwehr agents sent to England were either executed or used by MI5, and the deception sent to Rudolph’s Berlin mates was important re D-Day.

Rogoyska suggested that the care given to the deportees absolved the Lutetia from guilt over its wartime role. Or not. In 1955 Col. Rudolph paid a return visit to Paris, a place of happy memories, and cautiously entered the hotel where Manager Chappaz was on duty. He greeted the Colonel warmly and offered him lunch as a hotel guest.

After Liberation, it took on a humane role, serving as a reception centre for deportees and prisoners-of-war back in France. Families gathered searching for news about loved ones, and the name Lutetia started to reflect loss, reunion and remembrance. This era cemented its place in the nation’s collective memory, lending it rare gravity.

Postwar Lutetia re-earned its role as an ideal of Parisian life, remaining a favourite of visiting notables, artists and designers, and its brasserie became a fixture of St-Germain. But the faded interiors, once fresh and modern, had faded. In 2014, its owners closed the property.

What followed were ambitious restorations. Trusted to architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the 4-year project sought to restore Lutetia’s historic features while reinventing it for a new era of luxury. Frescoes hidden beneath layers of paint were uncovered and meticulously restored, marble floors were relaid, and spaces allowed more light. The number of rooms was reduced, creating larger, more comfortable suites with St-Germain views. Eucalyptus wood, Murano glass and Carrara marble glamourised the interiors.

view over Paris

When the hotel reopened in 2018, it became a legend reborn. The restored Bar Joséphine, with its shimmering frescoes and live jazz, once again became a magnet for Parisians and travellers alike. The brasserie reestablished the Lutetia as a culinary destination, balancing tradition with innovation. In keeping with contemporary hospitality trends, the creation of the Akasha Holistic Wellbeing Centre, with a long pool, hammam, sauna, spas & treatment rooms, brought serenity and modernity.

In Ap 2025, Lutetia joined the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. Now Mandarin Oriental Lutetia Paris retained its status as the Left Bank’s only officially designated Palace hotel, a recognition of its heritage and standards. And it gained from Mandarin’s global reach.

Lutetia is now a living history, a Parisian institution that witnessed C20th triumphs and traumas, and still embodying the Left Bank spirit. The hotel offers an immersion into Paris itself, so discover the city through its artistic and intellectual heritage: literary cafés, art galleries, Left Bank boutiques and museums. Thanks to Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska, 2026

music area

epidemics - Clean Body: Modern History

The Clean Body, by Peter Ward

2019

In the midst of the global Covid pandemic, the author of The Clean Body: a Modern History (2019) showed that not only has the concept of clean been in flux throughout modern history, but that it is a social construction. Peter Ward made a convincing argument that what constit­uted cleanliness was a shifting ideal that could rest on one’s ability to pay for it.

In Ward’s timelines it became clear that from C16th-C17th, the body was not the main object of cleanliness. Instead the focus was linen undergarments. Clean people were those who had washed their vis­ib­le skin and who wore freshly washed underwear, something that many of the poor could not afford. As Ward explained in ab­sorb­ing detail, washing laundry was a physically demanding pursuit, requiring hours of difficult manual labour and a substantial amount of water in a world without plumbing and space to wash and dry.

  

Even as cleanliness became bodily, the poor faced challenges. When indoor plumbing is taken for granted, it is easy to forget that the emergence of bathrooms was very gradual. Bourgeois enthusiasm for regular bathing may have taken root in the late C18th, but the poor did not have the space or resources to do it, even with the emerg­ence of charitable and commercial public baths from 1840s on.

In many ways, technology was the major force behind the upsurge in personal cleanliness. What Ward called the Laundry Revolution ush­er­ed in an era where, from 1937, mechanised laundry cut labour drama­tically and allowed for clothes to be cleaned in the home or in a launderette. Simultaneously, the emergence of hot and cold running water allowed for daily washing.

These developments were exploited by clever advertising on the part of soap and detergent companies. Cleanliness was now a health goal, a beauty standard that was aggressively marketed. The expect­ations created by such marketing clearly took hold to a great extent.

Ward has written a rare thing: a history of the clean body, and also a history of societal expectation, technological innov­at­ion, class, privacy and spare time. This is one of those uncommon works that makes the everyday hardship of the past come to life, while at the same time making the reader critique their own exp­ect­ations about the world. This is a masterful work, to be recommended.

**

As I have shown in this blog, sanitation legislation was not passed in Britain until two public health acts arrived: the 1st Public Health Act of 1848 and the 2nd Public Health Act of 1875. The 1848 Act was passed in the wake of a cholera out­break that killed 52,000 people and provided a framework for local authorities. The 1875 Act gave local author­ities new pow­ers such as being able to pur­chase and repair sewers, and to cont­rol water supplies. So the later C19th saw a boom in pub­lic conven­iences across Britain, on high streets, railway stations and work­places. How could citizens even keep their hands clean until then, let alone their bodies?

The Cholera Pandemic of 1846-8 probably started in Mecca, spread to Russia, Great Britain and eventually to the USA. Lack of treatment of human faeces and lack of treatment of drinking water greatly facilitated the spread of the disease, and bodies of water were found to serve as a reservoir.

Now the question is: how much would body cleanliness reduce the rampant spread of infectious diseases across the world? Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported the following findings:

50% of healthy people have Staphylococcus aureus living on their nasal passages, throats, hair or skin.

In 15 minutes of bathing, average people shed 6 x 106 colony forming units of Staphylococcus aureus.

Each swimmer contributes 0.14 gm of faecal material to the water, within 15 minutes of entering. Show-ering with soap before swimming helps stop germ spread by removing faecal material from the body.

Washing hands with soap and water could reduce diarrhoeal disease-associated deaths by up to 50%.

A large percentage of foodborne disease outbreaks are spread by dirty contaminated hands.

Using alcohol gel hand sanitiser in classes showed a 20% reduction in absenteeism, due to infect­ion. 

And NB that handwashing can reduce even the risk of respiratory infect­ions by 16%!

A mask that totally covered the mouth and nose,

and social distancing

Recommended or mandated in 2020

So even though pandemics were spread via coughing, sneezing, sex, birds, farmed swine etc, the respiratory route was the mechanism most likely to lead to pandemic spread in 2020-1. Of course global travel has greatly increased the proportion of the globe open to infection and the speed of the spread across the interconnected world.

  

So with the recent pandemic, the timely detection of disease, av­ailability of basic care, tracing of contacts, quarantine pro­ced­ur­es and preparedness outside the health sector remain very crit­ical factors. As does public health infrastructure, including water and san­itation systems. The Clean Body book was not wrong; it just could not totally account for the control of modern epidemics like Covid19. Thank you to Dr Eleanor Janega for her review.

Scientists and doctors who opposed Covid vaccinations, masks and careful hygiene were very dangerous. And not just Covid. The theme for World Health Organisation Conference in 2020 reinforced the importance of handwashing with soap in order to prevent infection from other infectious diseases eg lassa fever, cholera, common cold, some foodborne diseases and some gastrointestinal disorders.