Jim Downs

Public-health officials don’t need to tiptoe around how monkeypox is currently being transmitted.

The practice of vaccination in the U.S. cannot be divorced from the history of slavery.

Counting both uninfected and infected people helps us better understand a pandemic.

Sexless, impersonal academic approaches tell us little about the lived experiences of the LGBT community.

Slave ships and colonial plantations created environments that enabled doctors to study how diseases spread.

The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end.

What seemed to enrage a former inmate most was the mutual consent of the men he lived with.

Government inaction or delay have shaped the course of many infectious disease outbreaks in our country.

Networks of activists transformed Stonewall from an isolated event into a turning point in the struggle for gay power.

How the story itself came out.

The New Orleans Fire Department was accused of not responding immediately and refusing to touch the bodies of victims.

The language that has long been critical to covertly mobilizing activism.

Why the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision was a major loss for gay rights.

Jim Downs discusses the plight of freed slaves during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

As Americans enjoy the holiday weekend, does anyone know how Memorial Day originated?