>> watch the communicators tonight and eight eastern on "c-span2". tonight former president barack obama and his new memoir, a promised land reflecting on his life and political career paredes interviewed by washington post columnist michelle and the foundation president elisabeth alexander. a former president barack obama tonight in a 30 eastern on "c-span2". you are watching book tv, on "c-span2". every weekend with the latest nonfiction book and authors "c-span2", created by aricans cable television company, is a public service and brought to you tay by your television provider. host: good evening and welcome per minute live online author event in this bookstore. it by name is chelsea from green

light were thrilled to host 90 cement with perri klass, with her book "a good time to be born". how it gives children a future. she will be talking with andrea solomon. before we start, i just want to say a huge thanks to perri klass and the team at norton to make this happen. and to all of you for showing up. so were not able to host events in our stores, our community of authors new leaders are still here. we are grateful for your support and for the chance to make this space for conversation and connection. now a couple of housekeeping things. enter zoom webinar tonight, you can see in here, speakers that they cannot see or hear you. you can see that you're here though. and you can see who is hereby

looking at the top of your zoom screen. there is a couple of functions we will be using throughout the event that you can find at the bottom of your zoom lens and front window. one is an icon labeled chat with a speech bubble. you're welcome to post your comments and thoughts in the chat. it is a great way to show your appreciation for the author and interact with your fellow attendees. if you have the specific question you would like to have answered by the author you please post that in the q&a module. you can find it by clicking on the icon in the q&a looks like to speech bubbles. it will be pulling questions wildly from the q&a to be answered in the later part of the program. we are recording tonight's event to look for the video or audio version on our social channels later on. and importantly to my featured a book, "a good time to be born" is available-for-sale in the

bookstore. we are excited to be able to offer actual shopping in a bookstore locations, at 7:00 p.m. every day of the week. you can purchase perri klass' book and any others on the site. four order online greenlight bookstore .com for quick pickup of the store for shipping anywhere in the u.s. if you care about supporting the authors in the ongoing assistance in the bookstores, signed tonight feature book is a great way to show your support. and i would like to introduce tonight speaker . are interviewer tonight is andrew solomon. he is a writer on politics and in psychology. professor of clinical psychology at columbia university and former president japan america. most recently, he made an audio

series called new family values and award winning film. far from the tree, an award for nonfiction. twenty-five other and national and international awards as well . is also the author of delay. national book award winner and pulitzer prize finalist. it the ironing teller in a novel, entered. activist and lgbt rights in mental health and the arts. and the founder of the solomon research scholarship from lgbt studies at the university. in the national lgbt key passport university of michigan center. and museum of art in new york public library and any others. andrew will be speaking with her featured author. perri klass and she is a

professor of journalism in pediatrics new york university, and nyu and national medical director of every child in need. she writes the lease columns and checkups of the new york times. her new book "a good time to be born" is about the fight against child mortality that transforms parenting and the way we live. interweaving your own experiences as a medical student in doctor . tribute to groundbreaking when the doctors. and josephine baker, and to the public health advocates and scientists who brought new approaches in the scientific ideas about sanitation and vaccinations with families. perri klass will start off with a reading from her book and shall be talking with andrew and all of you.

please take it away. perri: thank you. our grandparents and great-grandparents and all of the parents before throughout history, expected the children to die. it was a known and predictable risk that went along with being a parent. now, we expected children not to die. we are the luckiest parents in history, we who are waves on past 75 years or so. because we are the first parents ever who have been able to enter into parenthood in the hopeful expectation of seeing how our children survive and thrive. and were also the luckiest children in history born into an era where we can expect to grow up along with all of our sisters and brothers. driving down the child mortali mortality. this was in no way a single project. it can be seen in the unified

accomplishment maybe even our greatest human accomplishment. at least for pediatricians parents. entire world as we learned some shock and great sorrow how our precious human bodies are in micro organisms the barred ways to convince you of how we live, how we travel. peers have taken some comfort in knowing the most part, children are less severely affected by covid-19 but also through history, babies and children have in a particular honorable group. and parents afflicted with the fear of contagion and infection and death rate of children used to die regularly and unsurprisingly. babies died if they were premature because they were born with congenital anomalies because they got an infection and over and one -year-olds died of some of diarrhea. often cause five microbes in the

water. for the started drinking after they were born. three -year-old and five and six and seven and a -year-olds died from fever and hysteria pneumonia and of skin infections. or influences that turn into pneumonia. and as recently as the late 19th and early at claim center. almost every family, every ethnic group, every country rich or poor was touch in some way to the death of children. children death was always there. and in prayers and ceremonies, memorials and things hanging on the walls. and stories and dramas and paintings because it was so consistent in childhood and family life. there also in the art and literature and songs and stories of childhood and family life rated from the centuries old as they had all through human

history. ten on the lever of babies yet seem to have them wrote this gal from brooklyn in 1917 freedom married 11 years past life i wouldn't six children. i would be about to become a mother again. one boy nine years and one in six years. two of them had apparently died some years ago . she didn't say operated but then again she had two babies and she ended up losing both of them. gave birth to a beautiful fat boy and live three days. and i was told that the baby had a leaky heart. three ms. later she was pregnant again and the sun looked to be -year-old and then she awoke one morning cutting debt alongside perforated now pregnant again she worries constantly about the terrible long labor she was likely to adore about what would become of the baby. i try and live a good honest life in my home is in babies are my idols. i love them but i am afraid something will happen to this

one again. she was writing this letter to the united states government. the children's bureau was established in 1912. it still federal office published a peer but prenatal care in his infant care in 1913 and in 1914. enduringly popular, first distributed free of charge provided by politicians to their constituents later available for purchase. when 1929, the government estimated these writings touch the parents of half the babies born in the united states. you can think how i feel she wrote to the author. i cry night and day for my big fat babies taken from me like that . she was not living in the middle ages the victorian years, living in 1917. in a new york city, where my grandmother lives, ten years before my own parents were born. at the time in 1917, when she

wrote a letter, nearly a quarter of the children were not alive in the united states, they die before their fifth birthdays. the mothers roads in the decades of the 20th century for the certain hope for medical solutions. for advice that might protect the next baby. even a desire to extend that protections that all babies and children to join in the larger project of the children's bureau would attempt to represent it. i can only wish that i could take up the work of babies welfare but a woman who lost her child in illinois. letters were from women some with written language is telling others educated and privileged. there was no segment of society in which the life in particular know or has there ever been. there was little evidence in it was incomplete and infant child mortality was extremely high. in the early 18 centuries the third of all children are in

some cases even 40 percent or more dying before the outgroup childhood. the first decade grandmother was growing up, more than 100 babies out of a thousand when the link to the first birthdays. mortality rates were even higher. for immigrants and african americans. the infant mortality rates, it was 5.8 deaths per 1000 live births in 2017 and the majority were before the first birthday actually six months of life. [inaudible]. our pre- maturities. a goo "a good time to be born" l the story of 104 greatest remarkable infusion of science of public health of medicines. the transporter emotional landscapes and even our souls. all throughout human history,

any children died in infancy and childhood. this was through true in colonial american and in victorian england is so true in the early 20th century. he went around any table, . much everyone had lost a sibling in childhood afraid an infant and child mortality for the fact of life for almost every family rich or poor. and john rockefeller the richest man in the world founded the rockefeller institute and its grandson dialed into died afraid it and disadvantaged populations including enslaved children in the earlymmigrants. i'll stop there. andr: thank you for that lovely reading a let m begin this conversation by saying, thiss really quite a remarkable book. just had a great review inhe times. it was written in an eaging

and even a nice style, escapes along what you jt heard is how is bringing togethe enormous amounts of relatively abstract information. likewise, we tell anecdotes and stories. but any other stories as wl. these were about people lost children across the entire cial spectrum. and bit by bitnd over. it's a very sobering study. an apparent, vy distraught over and over again but what it might've been like to have two have this happen to you. and i thought i forwarded any questions about parenti and someone that are crent at the moment. but they to ask you, what is yo sense of how people responded psychologically and emotnally to these losses. do you think that becau they

were common people that people were better protected against them or doou think the quality of their dpair was staying with the quality and some might allude those for example that you write about in the book. perri: i think the quality of despair was the same straightway they were less isolated. because it was so common. as an experience of everywoman had argued i think that when you read the accounts the parents right, he can see they want their children in the same ways that you can see they remembered them. you can even see that they went over and over things. could have i and if we had not moved to the city or if i had not done this or if you hadn't done that. they did all of that. but they sort of did it in company. one of the things which it struck me is that when i talked to people who have lost children

in recent years, and of course not a perfectly safe place and some areas and projects happen. any of those press about how isolated they feel . that is to say that you cannot bring up casually, or not so casually in conversation nowadays. when you have three children but only two of them are with you. that stops the conversation. that is not something that you need to discuss. i think in the past, there were ways because of it was so common that you can at least acknowledge the child in the grave. anew: let's tal a little bit in the context. but some of the lses where it clearly cutso deep in the qualy of accusations because of deepening pticularly jean o'neill's motr the stories that you could tell about the death of his what would've been his older brother. perri: so, i was actually

writing about i think are examples in art and literature. and as a disease that every single child got before the vaccine, measles . because his incredibly infectious. in most, they're very miserable disease, they feel terrible had high temperatures. it's a disease which every single child when there are rare complications, the relatively rare, with all of the children in the world. so we lost a fair number of children. even so when i look for these references, any of them were thankful .-ellipsis disease and most children recover. and i was actually watching a performance long day's journey. it's not strong autobiographical which we think it is a way up

with an action, the mother uses or is addicted to opioids. the father thinks too much. and at the center of the players this tragedy of a baby lost to measles. mother going to be on the road with her actor husband and she lives with her own mother, her six -year-old son and her baby. in the six -year-old gets measles the older child is measles and is allowed to go in the room with the baby is then the pavement gets measles. the child recovers the baby dies. the mother never forgive herself for having let the children prayed and she never forgives her son. when into the room and infected his younger brother and thinks he did it on purpose because he was jealous of the baby. that common childhood disease comes into this family and devastates the family. anew: right.

perri: it is all true. the mother, this sort of reconciliation baby more or less take them baby of the boy who died. andrew: type a little bit. love is now that there was enormous medical progress. and that the development of the vaccines has made an extraordinary difference in the lives of children. but the public health story is less well-known party has the information not only about getting vaccines but also about the measures that were helpful to children. is it disseminated to the visionaries who really let that process. perri: i feel a little guilty. i feel there were probably the sanitation things that i probably don't know about. you start by going back certainly to the 19th century

and thinking about the systems and cleaning of the water. that's tremendously important. but then when you get, what one of the things that's happening in the 19th century, as people are figuring out the importance of microbes. the importance of bacteria's. and you have experiments and later developing pasteurization which can make meals safe. all of this is tremendously important. but he has to get to the individual households. parents have to understand it the dangers of letting milk spoil. or using water that you don't know whether it's pure. one of the reasons that since important is because especially the summers, and in cities around the turn-of-the-century there is this understanding that in the summer come something that they called - it just upset stomach. his diarrhea.

and he killed thousands of babies every month in the summer. it is not a full understanding either on the part of parents or the part of the medical people where that comes from. isn't the heat. is it bad smells. the poor ventilation. for all of that whole range of microbes that causes children to get stomach upsets. and then affect the are so vulnerable to dehydration. mr. true, you've ever brought a sick baby the stomach bug in, the pediatrician probably told you the infections are going to do any harm. the dehydration. if anybody by dehydration solutions. popsicles and he putting the flutes back in. andrew: yes absolutely. talk about men, what was the

relationship between the people who developed vaccines and help to control release address any of these problems. in the early eugenics movements. in the notion that where these children lived and unworthy children who were dying in such large numbers. a. perri: is a really interesting question. because right from the beginning of the 19th century, called beginning of the 20th century, people start counting dead babies. i think the truth is if you go that much further than that. early infant mortality, stillborn babies, babies, such a common active like the nobody even necessarily really counted departed and at the beginning of the 20th century, 1906, the british actor published a book called infant mortality of social problems. which he basically said we should not be losing all of these children under a year of

age in the united kingdom . were losing our regimen of any. but he says that some children are just going to be born week and there's nothing we can do about that. he thinks that probably one out of every ten may just lose because they're sort of the unfit. now it's interesting is one of the things about this against infant mortality is that the people who are trying to bring down infant mortality especially newborn mortalities regularly being asked, what if you save all of these week babies. what is going to happen. are they meant to die. they really able to live. there are quite a view this in the founder of the american pediatrics is far him was a very weak and sickly baby himself and he was born in germany targeted and he repeatedly referenced to

the fact that just because somebody is weak and sickly baby does not . who that person is going to grow up to be. but there are other people is overlaps in which you have people explaining very seriously that at the same time that you are saving babies, you also have to discourage certain people from marrying or reproducing. because they're very worried about people with epilepsy for example. some of them. or whatever people, it's true of everybody who's involved in bringing down infant mortality. they keep seeing this question being asked. willie actually weaken our populations if we save these babies. in all the other hand it's also very clear and everybody that

even the people at the top of the social pyramid are losing babies. in losing babies frequently. andrew: talk a little bit about abraham and mary todd lincoln and the loss of their baby. the very extraordinary wayshat they responded to any on way of losing their baby at the same time as jefferson david did. perri: singh of the lincoln, and ur sons. in those one as a child probably to dysia, long beforehere is a white house . byhe time they get to the white house, they are relatively have two small boys were the whi house children. when the things that is sort of interesting is that press is always interesting and white have children. they're always good human interest stories . so they have two boys the white house they on our boy robert already

was in college and the twooys the white house get sick. this was during the civil war they get sick. they get typhoid canrobably get typhoid because washington's soldiers in the camps andhe sanitation systems on the time are overwhelmed. to be honest he probably get sick because tre sewagehe potomac and drinking the water the white house. and one of them dies. one ofhe reasons i like talking about presidential children is because it is a shorthand way o saying with the bestedical attention than anyone could survive at the time. so the standardized the white house, hisarents more him. but mary, his morning exceively to the unbalced inconsolable and often whe you say that about a woman in that

era, but you mean is she's not able to assess this. it put a that is been determined. something which has been senty god. and although both parents are deeply affected by you losing their son, there's something about the way that sheourns which affect people. she doesn't cherish the relics and does not want him saved or to ever go int the room where he died again. and then eventually, she has a very tragic life, and her husband's fascinating as he sits xt to her. she hasour sons, and dies as a baby, wh is the white house the other the white house by dies probay of tubercusis, not long aer his father. so she's very streamer for children. the parallel is that the white

house, jefferson a davis, she also outlived all four of her sons did she's g one daughter who outlives her. when he dies. thislmost, i don't call it routinely with this kind of tragic parental history, which even when you are powerful you are privileged, there's this kind of routine of recurring tragedy. ultimately and of course is all happening when parents all over the country are losing special needs sons. going into the army. drew: let's move a little bit forward in a way. we are obviously in the midst of a global pandemic.

the sense of mortality particularly for adults but also to some msure perhaps for children is confronting us in a way that it hasn't been any generation in a very shocking and overwhelming passion. and yes we find ourselves in the country according to a, a quarter of the people who are terviewed wouldn't not be vaccined with the vaccine were developed. tell me about the kind of litics in the vaccines and how theyrew up. and wha was viewed as the great miracle and to some large part of the citizenship. perri: and telling the truth, i don't think . entrant pediatricians understand this very well. is a group we love vaccines. we believe vaccines. and i think in some ways is true that we haven't always

collectively done the best job of responding to people who are aware of the vaccines. we do believe in them. i think that one of the things that i'm looking at writing this book is actually a way that you forget the diseases that you don't know about. the ways the disease dysuria, was such a terrifying word. or polio, how quickly the kind of slipped from our collective memory. and help me understand a little bit about why people are more frightened of the diseases and therefore why they are sometimes susceptible to bring about vaccine. there certainly a long history of anxiety vaccines going back all the way to the no question

scientific miracle in small packs vaccines. why people worried about it. people understood that seems incredibly present thing to turn on your immune system. i give you dose of something that is not smallpox that is close enough to smallpox that attract your body into defending itself against smallpox. and you end up if you had smallpox. and i think that for some people, that was clever. is it your body amazing. isn't science smart freedom to some people translates as you're giving me an infection. you're putting something into my body. i think this sort of biological brilliance of that nation sometimes also feels frightening because you're turning on the system in your body.

vaccines for children when you look at the diseases that are here and you think about this dysuria . when you think about polio. i think about attendance laws when tetanus was around. there's no question that the terrors that my grandmother, not that long ago, when my parents grew up in new york city. ... ... >> i think it is very hard to remember it. one of the things that is so, distinguishes this boo is his

vivid portrt of the people who held. and i feels our conversation so far haseen about dying children. which is kind of a downbeat topic, generally acknowledged to be. in the book is in man ways really about the lives of children and t lives that made the surviving childn possible. going to switch to a more upbeat peace of the conversation. but that is start by asking you to give a little description of the woman i think of is your josepne baker. not to be confud with the entertainer. [laughter] i did such extraordinary things look quite astonishingly masculine. tells about who she was, what she did, always involve her woman of her air of becoming a doct what she was able to accomplish in part because inc. of being a woman as a doctor. >> guest: i have to set found

myself identifying or aspiring to identify with some of these are markable women. and with their stories. josephine baker wrote a wonderful autobiography in 1939 called fighting for life. you can hear it in her voice so clearly as she sort of described, she was a doctor for make very good upper-middle-class family. should not plan to have a career but these things happen. her father died, her family needed money, she had an invalid sister needed a job. and she went to a women's medical college, shoot out in practice medicine. she is clearly a very determined, very calm, very smart. at a certain point she felt loving the idea of public healt health. she's our work for the city department of health.

she is going house to house. she was working in the schools. punchy became interested in the questions of preventing disease diseases. because you cannot treat when the children got diarrhea, when they got to syria, there wasn't anything you could do. i was looking for an example of the way that she wrote about it. she said that she realized the way to deal with the people being sick was to keep them well. was to prevent them from getting illnesses. you could teach parents, coming back to what we're talking about before, how to provide, clean milk. how you could keep the milk safe come how to boil water, how to breast-feed baby that you could keep the children from getting sick. she wrote about doing an

experiment one summer say she did not necessarily kill babies. she was one of the first people to help get nurses into the public schools. because they were in a strange situation on the lower east side if they are sent home at that any infections, skin infections, headlights any of the very great common things. in the classrooms were empty. he sent doctors and, the inspect the doctors they sent them home. she writes about how strange it was, about one city departments and the children home because i have infections. the menu had the true doctors yelling at the parents the children are not in school. we got one city department sending children home the other city department to blame the children that the children are home. she answers she said was to put nurses in the schools to deal the infection to help parents learn how to handle it.

and one of the things she wrote about, she said it wasn't work callous when their babies died, then they cried like mothers. they were just horribly fatalistic about it will it was going on. babies of his died in summer and there's no point to try to do anything about it. it depressed me so. and then, when she actually found ways to send a nurse was from the settlement going into the homes trying to help, then people are thrilled, there excited the messages go on. the messages go around. and babies live. babies live in the summer. they start doing better in some of the poor neighbors and in some of the wealthy families. this is before antibiotics. this is before most vaccines.

-ites hygiene comments educatio education, it's nurses going house to house and waiting babies, and encouraging parents. it's milk stations were pure milk is made available to families, nathan strauss were the owners of macy that was his cause. milk stations can be were children come examine. it sort of this very hands on public health even take care of your babies and keep your babies safe. this goes back to before antibiotics and most vaccines. >> host: using the message of empowerment that ultimately cause the change come about? it's interesting to look at sources a go back long way advocating for breast-feeding for example.

i thought about the importance of breast-feeding. there's a lot of attention, there's also a great deal of fatalism. on the way it is up fatalism that significantly has disappeared from our contemporary apps experience. as we more and more believe not only that our children will survive, but our children deserve to survive. and deserve to have surviving children. what has the shift been like? >> guest: one of the reasons i wrote this book was by the time i trained in pediatrics in the 1980s, tongue met my grandmother, tongue but having children in the 1920s. so about aittle bit more thanalf a centu later, by the 1980s when i'm training in pediatricso such thing as

predictable routine, quote unquote acceptable deaths. pretty much every death presents either a faire. we have not made the world fe enough. sudden infant death syndrome which is figuring out about sleep position and other risk factors. either we haven't made the world safe enough, car seats, we better protection for children in cars. we need to prevent the accident. or some other medical conundrum we have not sold yet. becaus they're going down one after another. it's not always the carac anomalies, that diseases. but there iso sense of fatalism. this is one of the ones we still haveo solve. but this translates to is it's

a great and glorious thing. it is a cerin promise. that you go into parents nowadays and parented, you know, there are no guarantees. it always, you're putting your heart on the lin in so many ways. but there is a sort of underlying assumption that unless o of these terrible tragedies hapn, your child is going to live to growp. now i do think that what shot shows two parents, as it doe place a tremendous reonsibility on parents. at is to say if i say to you, are you lucky if you make the right decisions, you take the right precautions starting with takin that baby home from the hospital in a car

seat. and putting tt baby down the safest possible sleep position. if you do all of these things right, y can keep your baby safe. there's a certain emphasis on the you. there's a certain emphasis on the fac that at every moment you are doing the right safest thing. i would say to you, don't think it might grandmother it lay awake nights made the wrong decision. she is the world is a dangerous place. and she probably tried to cast theight spells, she is certainly did whatever the door said. but i think she knew on se very profound level that the was no guarantees. i mentionedohn d rockefelr, the first

billionaire in history, partly because that might be wha my grandmother would've said. ev if you're john the rockefeller himself. there is not any realafety. i think one of the things that does to us as parents and may be pediatrians is not that we would trade it for the uncertainty or the danger, but we do feel responsible. one of the things i wondered about is why are we as anxious as we are as parents? when by any objective standard, there is enough food, i could give you a long list of all of the things you don't have to be anxious about. andt the end of the long list i could say so are you anxious? cute still be just as anxious or more. >> host: right. well, let me move on now to some of the questionshat have been coming i from

participants in this conversation. and let me say we have some very good qutions. there's anyone else who has a question there is a&a function as we mentioned at the beginnin beginning. be feel free to type in that question we will attempt to get tohem all. betty writes, in connection with some of the things you address in the book she said although this book seems to be about contagious diseases and the significant decrease from infection, the death of children that continues today is from gun violence. gun violence has been identified as a public health problem. not just a public health safety matter. in some communi is not a good time to be born. but many families than with the loss of one or more children from gun violence, bu are the thinking about how to elevate this issue? spew nt so i do try to talk about that.

i do think the issue of gun violence is also the issue of other kindsf trauma, other kinds of death. thoseave been really important pediatric issues in the 20th centuryry and now into the 21st. in fact, i belve and i think most pediatricians believe that the way to think about gun violence is thinkingf a public health problem. think of it as a problem that needs research on what are the risk factors? one of the best strategies to help protect children? and the person asking the question probay knows the research was actually blocked funding for that research was blocked by the gun lobby is something whi could not be studied. the question of how you of fate the risk.

when you think about trying to abate that kind of a risk, when you think about a bait of say dying in car accidents, you can think about technological fixes. are there things you can build in each ptect children? ar there laws you can pass? is there education you forgive? the answer is usually yes, yes, yes,nd yes. we canhink about and all different ways. the person asked the queion is absolutely right. one of the things you see, especially when these infectious diseases debate you see what else i hurting children. what else is killing children. maybe not in the numbers of the smallpox epidemic. but in great numbers and needless on necessary tragic

death. >> it's in the book and you write about it movingly. you write about the importance of taking action. it ties in with these large questions it affects abandon people more. in connection with which i will go into harry's question, the excerpt you read speaks of the profound advances and reduce infant mortality over time. can you talk about how your research addresses the infant mortality rate in the u.s. versus other wealthy countries? and how and why women of color are at particular risk of the death in childbirth and infant mortality. >> guest: absolutely. let me try to takehose both.

so first of all, i cited the infant mortality rate risk. we measure infant mortality as a number of children every thousand live births who do not make it tohe first birthday. once i beenoing since it getting of the 20th century. hard to get comparative numbers across theentury because people were not counting things in the same way. 5.8 is a very low number is 10200 for every liv worth dying. three times as high s

countries like singapore and finland there closer down to two deaths per thousandive persons. has in fact repeatedly been inted out. enter numbers are not the best. you also notice it's without a national hlth system. the kind of preventive universal primary care that is probably to make sure all women get good care. not only durin their presidency but also before. and then the second part, which i come back to again and again and the book is the fact that the infant mortality rate is twice as high in

african-american children in this country as white children and the maternal mortality rate is much hired african-american women. the thing thatou're saying and tragic about that is t mortality rate among african-american cldren have actually come down very dramatically since the beginning of the 19th century was astronomically high spent a tremendous amount of lives saved, hunters of thousands of lives saved look like a improvement, the disparage has remaine when you are losing 100 extra for every thousd, it comes

down. now it's only five extra. you still have the disparities. it does not reflect poverty. certainly the maternal poverty rate among african-american women is higher even in women who are educated, well-to-do, have good access to medical car care. and there is a lot of thought and conversation and research right now about what goes into the disparities and why they are persistent. they are a tremendous subject of concern and subjectf research as they should. spew and i have one other question from the audience. this is from martha. she says do you think adults would take comn sense covid precautions like mask wearing more seriously if this vir were more dangerous for young children? i think the question of covid and childhood is a

interesting question. the ways w have responded to covet and how much they are tied to the myth that it does not affect children at all. or even the accurate information that does not sm to affect children as severely. >> guest: i do not know i mean i think, i think, and i think everyone with children thanks about what it would mean if this virus were more severe in children. and many respiratory viruses have been. i will add a little obvious pediatric lesson that children are more vulnerable to respiratory diseases because th have tiny airways. just as they are more vulnerable to diarrhea and dehydration because they have smaller blood volumes and more surface area in relation to their body. there are so neurological truth truths. influence has been really hard on babies a young children.

how dierent with this pandemic look to us if this disease was actually more dangerous to our cldren? ion't know. is it easier to imagi people being vigilant, being furious out in public if they are worried that you are coming too close to me, you're going tourt my child? i don't know. i think it is possible that w would be more vigilant. and that vigilance would be being policed more strictly up we thought it was question of keeping children safe. but i don't know. it feels like something which pants are already so frightened for their children. so worried for their children. we are not absolutely sure how

to calculate t risk given this is a virus that is harder on the old. >> i heard that powerful statement of that situation. the book feels particularly urgent coming at a time to what seems to me and so many other people such a bizarre divide between the people for taking safety precautions because a deadly pandemic is ravaging the world. and who argue it is merely a political mood and to move and have nothing to do with the illness which in many cases is not as severe and dangerous. i mean given the death rate from covid. but the approach to it, people

are persistent. obviously believe people like us in this time in history and have a sense are not subject to nature. we saw version of that during hiv. other illnesses that have popped up in the course of our lifetime. the hiv-1 was affecting yea people. and the general population thought it was terribly sad, they did not feel highly motivated necessarily to address it. steven why don't we close. were coming to a close with the story you told me earlier about the earliest days of hiv. i think it's a good object lesson for all of us to bear in mind of covid. it's the days we are livingn

the days in which i hope man people will be reading your book. >> thank you. i hope they will becau it is a book about using science and public health. but also will and fellowship to defeat the invisible microbes that are tragic. ihink it's a not necessarily a simple campaign or a simple process. it's a book about the fact that science and public health and advocacy and parents working with parents, doctors, scientists can make life better. i started harvard medical school in 198 we heard a somewhat infamous truth which we were told basically infectious diseases were over. thatur job, our generation

of doctors would be t solve the chronic diseases of civilized living the diseases of living long and eating well and over civilized world. because the infection had essentially been defeated. and that was in 1982 when hiv was not yet identified, not yet understood. but it would be the disease which shaped medical education during our years. i remembe some of the extremes before peopl understood how that disease was transmitted. or what it was. the extreme fear and rush to judgment, it is too dangerous for this child to be in this

school. just the stu when you look back on it made no sse at all. that came out of that fearnd anxiety. wh i was remembering was the arrogance of our ideas that we had outsmarted the invisible worldf viruses and bacteria's. wasn't science in the public health. >> have been a couple of other addresses a jet questions that came in from the audience. look at one of them and call close. what fraction and the life expectancy game in the last century used improvements with infant mortality.

i can't give you a single numbe number. most of the life expectancy recruitment that you see in the first half of the 20th century comes from the decrease in infant mortality. you have such a dramatic increase in mortality. i know this is a little geeky pretty won't stay with it too long. one of the reasons it's hard to figure out more than the 20th century they don't have that denominator, instead you get people counting numbers with to bring down the percentage i think the answer is that a really overwhelmingly increase in life expectancy at least in

the first half of the 20th century is bringing down the infant mortality is not what you're doing a a result the babies aren't a dying. the average kee on getting better. were going to turn over i need to wrapp. it's an extraordinary book. sure there are others of you thatave questions and we will be able to send them on you wish to do. thank you so much for taking the time ensuring your book with everyone. strict thank you tha you so much. thank you for tonight's vital conversation. and thank you everye who came out for this conversation tonight. a reminder if youon't already have your hands on the book that you can buy a gd times to be born at green

light bookstore. if you are i your book brooklyn y can stop at store any day of the week, noon to 7:00 p.m. or you can shop online green light bookstore.com you can find the link in the chat. you can arrange curbside pickup. or if the book is shipp to you if you're anywhere in the u.s. also, a reminder in case you missed any par i just want to indulge at a rewatchr share with friends and family who missed out, tonight haseen recorded a be up on the youtube channel. in the next coue of days. thanks a much everyone. and have a wonderful rest of your evening. >> tonight on the communicators we look at issues independent phone broadband and video providers face match poke president ceo of aca connects.

and boy come vision president patricia boyers. >> our members have done is such a great job of serving their communities and meeting the needs and keeping americans connected with so many of our member stepping up to adopt the fcc's pledge to keep americans connected. but by the same token, we also recognize they are still continuing needs. needs to serve students, needs to work with schools. need to work with hospitals and medical facilities. so we can improve telehealth. ways we can increase broadband speed. ways we can serve unserved areas priests who backwash the communication i ate eastern on cspan2. >> >> tonight former president barack obama on his new memoir a promised land reflecting on his life and political career presenter gave a "washington post" columnist and melon

addition president elizabeth alexander. or president barack obama tonight at on cspan2. >> you are watching book tv on cspan2. every weekend but the latest nonfiction books and authors. cspan2, created by america's cable television company as a public service. brought to you today by your television provider. >> thank you so much for being here. i've read much of your work over the year. i was really delighted to get this decided it's the first to be done in this way. >> to create a factual account of