Not Your Grandmother's Ra: Rheumatoid Arthritis from Gold Therapy to Biologics

Simone Caron, Wake Forest University

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects approximately one percent of the United States population. Many studies have been done to determine the causes of RA from environmental factors to dietary impacts, occupational risks, and genetics. This paper is less concerned with the etiology of RA than the disabilization it brought to patients. Women were and continue to be two to three times more likely to develop RA than men, yet there are virtually no historical studies about how women dealt with the debilitating progression of RA on their daily lives. This paper seeks to fill this historical void by asking several questions. When did clinicians first notice the disproportionate number of women suffering with RA? Did clinicians take women’s pain seriously prior to blood and genetic testing that confirmed RA in patients? What impact did increased technology such as OXO and other kitchen/household gadgets have on women’s daily lives as they struggled with the debilitating pain and abnormal joint morphology that made everyday tasks difficult? Did this increased technology allow women to live independently longer than in previous decades? What role did the increasingly powerful pharmaceutical industry play? Many rheumatologists hailed the introduction of biologics in the early twenty-first century as the breakthrough treatment for RA, yet forty percent of patients have not benefitted from this “magic bullet.” This paper examines the history of women diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, the unique challenges they faced such as medical dismissiveness and societal stigma, and the impact of new therapeutic arsenals on women’s daily lives.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 86. Gender and Health: From Coal Miners to Motherhood