American Institute of the History of Pharmacy

AIHP Affirms Support for the Pharmacy Profession's Stand Against Racial Injustice

AIHP’s Board of Directors has affirmed the Institute’s support for the “Stand Against Racial Injustice” announced by thirteen national pharmacy organizations in a joint statement on June 5, 2020.

Issued in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others, the joint statement of the national pharmacy organizations recognizes that:

Adding to the challenges of the global pandemic of COVID-19, which disproportionately impact communities of color, there is a greater public health crisis plaguing our country: racism and discrimination. People of color and other marginalized groups experience a continuum of systemic racism, discrimination, and injustices that result in ongoing health inequities created by numerous factors impacting social determinants of health.

The joint statement calls for “intentional dialogue and action” and commits the pharmacy profession to addressing health care disparities, providing education on social injustices and systemic challenges impacting health care, developing strategies to address health care disparities, and continuing dialogue among pharmacy organizations and stakeholders to identify and implement change.

Call for Nominations for the 2020 AIHP Glenn Sonnedecker Prize—Deadline Extended!

The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy has extended the deadline for nominations for the 2020 AIHP Glenn Sonnedecker Prize. The deadline for receipt of nominations is now July 31, 2020.

The AIHP Glenn Sonnedecker Prize is awarded to the author(s) of the best published article during the preceding calendar year about the history of some facet of pharmacy practice or pharmacy education in the United States. The award comes with a $1,000 monetary prize.

Publications eligible for nomination for the 2020 Sonnedecker Prize must meet the following criteria:

1. Published in a peer-reviewed journal during 2019 (including electronic appearance);
2. focused directly on the history of some facet of pharmacy practice or pharmacy education in the United States (including the Colonial period);
3. represent exemplary historical research methodology and interpretation; and
4. be written clearly.

Nominations are welcomed from any source, including self-nominations by authors. Nominations (including a PDF copy of the article being nominated) should be emailed to AIHP’s Executive Director at dennis.birke@aihp.org with “Sonnedecker Prize” in the subject line or mailed to AIHP’s office at 777 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI  53705. Nominations received after the extended July 31, 2020 deadline will not be considered.

Cycles and “Go-Rounds”: A Brief History of Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage

From the Collections is a recurring feature at aihp.org that highlights articles, artifacts, images, and other items of interest from AIHP publications and collections'

In 2020, Americans are heading to the polls. Just as Covid-19, the economy, and systemic racism will feature as significant issues, healthcare and, more specifically, Medicare outpatient prescription drug coverage will also no doubt continue to be of interest to voters.

This is not a new issue. Thirty years ago, John Coster wrote about this topic in Pharmacy in History, and his article, “Politics, Congress, and Outpatient Prescription Drug Coverage under Medicare: A Historical Review, 1965-1989” documented the, then, unsuccessful twenty-five year effort to add more robust prescription drug coverage to Medicare. AIHP is pleased to male this article available via open-access until the end of 2020.

Coster concluded that, “given the sudden changeability of the political winds,” the pharmacy profession should be prepared “for the possibility of another potential go-round” on the subject (p. 126). His analysis continued only through the end of the Reagan administration. But Medicare prescription drug coverage has remained a hot topic ever since, and this post will bring Coster’s historical analysis to the present.

AIHP Wants to Document Your COVID-19 Stories and Experiences

The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy is documenting and preserving pharmacy stories and experiences during the COVID-19 global pandemic for the benefit of future historians and scholars. We seek to record the effects of this public health emergency on all types of pharmacy experiences. We invite you to share your pharmacy stories, photos, videos, artifacts, and other documentation of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

You can participate in the AIHP COVID-19 Pandemic Pharmacy Historical Documentation Project either (1) by immediately sharing your thoughts/experiences and/or submitting digital materials or (2) by signifying your to intention to submit materials in the future. Please comply with all applicable local or state stay-at-home orders while self-documenting.

Please click the link below to learn more about participating in the AIHP COVID-19 Pandemic Pharmacy Historical Documentation Project.

AIHP and UW School of Pharmacy Announce Digitization Project

The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy and the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy are excited to announce a partnership with the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center (UWDCC) to digitize portions of the historical collections housed in Rennebohm Hall. UWDCC has provided digitization services since 2001 and has made available more than 50 subject-based collections that include more than 2,000,000 pages and 200,000 images. AIHP and the UW School of Pharmacy will digitize parts of the UW/AIHP Pharmaceutical Trade Catalog Collection and the AIHP Drug Topics Photograph Collection.

The "Medicines, Modernity, and Capitalism" digitization project is slated to begin during the summer of 2020 and will continue in phases until about 2027. The project will provide online access to important AIHP and UW–Madison School of Pharmacy historical sources that document changes in pharmacy practice, the pharmaceutical industry, public health, drug advertising, mass consumption, and many other late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century topics.

Black Lives Matter—Remembering Pharmacist-Author Ann Petry

From the Collections is a recurring feature at aihp.org that highlights articles, artifacts, images, and other items of interest from AIHP publications and collections.

The astonishing worldwide demonstrations precipitated by a police officer’s suffocation of George Floyd (May 25, 2020), a black man in Minneapolis, bring to mind the vast literature by black American authors that have exposed the malignancy of racial prejudice. One such author, Ann Lane Petry (1908-1997), was a pharmacist before gaining wide acclaim as a writer of novels, short stories, and children’s books.

In 1984, AIHP’s journal Pharmacy in History published an insightful article, "Ann Petry: From Pharmacist to Novelist," which assesses Petry’s writing, summarizing plot lines that involve pharmacists and drug stores and detailing her major themes of racism, sexism, and poverty. Written by Suzanne Poirier of the University of Illinois at Chicago and occasioned by Petry’s 1984 visit to the University at the invitation of the College of Pharmacy, the article also provides a brief biographical sketch of Petry. AIHP is pleased to make "Ann Petry from Pharmacist to Novelist" (Pharmacy in History 28, No. 1 (1986): 26-33) open access and available to all readers through the end of 2020.