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Oral History Collection

19 maio/2014

The Casa de Oswaldo Cruz collection of audio records comprises some 3,000 hours of oral history accounts, amassed during research into the history of the sciences and health and also during the recording of such events as History and Health Encounters and conferences and lectures. These sound recordings are valuable resources for research, graduate studies, and the public communication of science.

Reflecting the processes by which social actors construct their identities, these unique records convey the richness of human emotions, provide a diversity of interpretations regarding the stories of institutions and people, furnish original historical information, and capture singular human experiences.

The Department of Archives and Documentation is responsible for the storage and preservation of the Oral History Collection. Interested users are invited to consult the collections in the form of recordings or transcriptions.

Hours, location, contacto for scheduling an appointment

Mon.-Fri., 9:00 am-4:30 pm
Room 614 of the Expansion Building, Fiocruz
Avenida Brasil, 4036; Manguinhos; Rio de Janeiro
consulta@coc.fiocruz.br

 

[The material below is available only in Portuguese]

1995: 50th Anniversary of the Rio de Janeiro Board of Medicine

The goal of this project was to restore the memory of the creation of the Rio de Janeiro Board of Medicine in the year that it celebrated its 50th anniversary. The project coordinating committee selected five physicians from different specialties (ENT, obstetrics, tuberculosis, and surgery) and applied the life history approach in collecting accounts of their past. The Rio de Janeiro Board of Medicine was created during a period that was bookended by the 1927 foundation of the Union of Doctors and the definitive institutionalization of boards of medicine in Brazil in 1957. The starting date of 1927 was chosen because the debate over medical ethics and the need to create a Board of Medical Ethics took place within the union. The project timeframe ends in 1957, the year that Decree Law 3.268 was enacted, making boards of medicine judicially and financially autonomous government agencies with regionally hierarchical, decentralized administrative structures. The project was part of a broader research project conducted by the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz’s Department of Research to capture the history of health institutions, policies, and professions. One of its research sources was the catalogue “Ética e Institucionalização da Profissão Médica (1927-1957) – Repertório de fontes documentais para uma história da criação do Conselho de Medicina” (Ethics and the institutionalization of the medical profession [1927-1957]: A repertoire of documental sources for a history of the creation of the Board of Medicine), edited by André de Faria Pereira Neto.

August 1995-July 1997

Interviewees: Antonio Jorge Abunahman, Carlos Renato Grey, Ermiro Estevam de Lima, Renato Pacheco Filho, and Sylvio Lengruber Sertã 

30 Years of Bio-Manguinhos

The goal of this project was to trace the history of Bio-Manguinhos from the mid-1970s revitalization of Fiocruz to the present. Some of the topics addressed include Fiocruz’s participation in Ministry of Health programs to foster the production and development of immunotherapeutics, technology transfer agreements and investments in technological development, the structural constraints that present a challenge to the institution, and changes in the organization of Bio-Manguinhos.

June 2005-January 2006

Interviewees: Akira Homma, Antonio Gomes, Artur Couto, João Quental, José Lázaro de Brito Ladislau, Marcos Oliveira, Maria da Luz Leal, Nadia Maria Batoréu, Otávio Oliva, Raouf Sykora, and Ricardo Galler

Biotechnology in Health at Fiocruz

The project goal was to analyze the scientific and professional histories of Fiocruz researchers who work in the field of biotechnology. It was part of a larger project conducted by the Vice President’s Office for Institutional Development at Fiocruz, under an agreement with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO); this larger project promoted a series of studies on the current panorama of Latin American research institutions in health, especially regarding new management mechanisms and new patterns in scientific and technological innovation. Interviews were conducted with Fiocruz researchers and institutional heads whose careers were directly linked to the development of biotechnology at the institution and elsewhere in Brazil. Rather than gathering life histories, the interviews were guided by specific project concerns. Qualitative information served as a resource in interpreting the quantitative data gathered during a preliminary survey of around 100 researchers who had ties to seven technical or scientific areas within Fiocruz.

February 1996-February 1998

Interviewees: Akira Homma, Antônio Gomes Ferreira, Carlos Médicis Morel, Eduardo Leser, Geraldo Armoa, Leon Rabinovitch, Maria Celeste Emerick, Maria Cristina Vidal Pessolani, Mauro Marzochi, Naftale Katz, Salvatore Giovani de Simone, Samuel Goldenberg, Vinicius da Fonseca Filho, and Win Degrave

Voices of those at Risk: NGOs and AIDS in Brazil 

The project goal was to survey and analyze documents produced by AIDS NGOs and gather accounts from their participants. It is important to trace the paths of these groups because they have engaged in increasingly relevant work with patients and the public at large, contributing to government AIDS policies and to the individual and collective re-interpretation of the disease.

November 1996-May 1998

Interviewees: Alexandre do Valle, Ana Maria Bontempo Dias, Angela Maria Cunha Furtado, Antonio Dráuzio Varella, Conceição Lemes, Dayse de Mello Agra, Euclides Castilho, Hibernon C. Guerreiro, Maria Magdalena Lyra Valente, Maria Terezinha Vilella Duarte, Ronaldo Fernandes Espíndola, Rosemere de Souza Moniz, and Simone Maria Borges Lira Bezerra

Freidson’s Intellectual Trajectory and his View of the Medical Profession: A Study of the History of U.S. Medical Sociology 

The social sciences have only more recently begun to address issues in medicine, health, and disease in the United States. Some authors divide this history into two main periods, that is, before and after World War II. The field of the social sciences enjoyed strong growth after 1945, when it began to emerge at the country’s main universities and private foundations. One of the lead actors in this process was Eliot Lazarus Freidson, professor emeritus of New York University, where he began his 30-year career in 1961. Freidson published 13 books and 84 articles, had fellowships at various institutions and countries, held government posts, participated on journal editorial boards and in scientific associations, received many awards, and taught countless students, all of which bears witness to the broad dissemination of his ideas, the social recognition garnered by his work, and his role in the construction of medical sociology and the sociology of professions. His admirers and critics around the world view his work in medical sociology as having set the standard. The American Sociological Association established the Eliot Freidson Outstanding Publication Award for the best book or article on medical sociology. The purpose of this investigation was to analyze Freidson’s intellectual trajectory and discover the strategies he used in rising to a position of great academic eminence. This analysis of the content of his work focused on investigating his sociological view of the medical profession, as expressed in the books he published on the topic.

September 2006

Interviewees: Adele Feldman, Barbara Heyns, Ed Lehman, Jane Freidson, Juan Corradi, Judith Lorber, Kathleen Gerson, and Ruth Kavesh

Chagas in the Amazon

The collection comprises 20 tapes recorded by a team of Fiocruz researchers during their journey through regions near the Solimões, Juruá, and Tarauacá rivers, where they surveyed recent data on medical and public health conditions to enable a comparison with the conditions detected there by Carlos Chagas in 1912. Interviewees included physicians, politicians, health agents, and local residents. The accounts of their work and living experiences made it possible to paint a picture of living conditions in these regions.

June-July 1991

Creating a Collection on the Development and Implementation of INAMPS’s Priority Policies: 1985-1988

This collection gathered a set of accounts on the priority policies implemented by Brazil’s National Institute of Medical Assistance (INAMPS) from 1985 to 1988. The topics largely relate to public health reform, the universalization and equalization of care, the humanization of assistance action, the fight against fraud and corruption, and science and technology.

August 1987-October 1988

Interviewees: Ana Lúcia Souto, Ana Tereza da Silvia Pereira, Benedito Raul, Eleutério Rodriguez Neto, Hésio Cordeiro, José Carvalho de Noronha, José Gomes Temporão, Luiz Carlos Fadel, Maria do Espírito Santo, Maria Manuela Pinto, Miguel Grassani, Ricardo Nogueira, Roberto Magalhães, Sérgio Granja, Silvia Levi, Fátima, and Telma Ruth da Silveira 

National Public Health School (ENSP): 50 Years 

The project goal was to capture a set of oral accounts based on interviews with social actors who took part from 1953 through 2003 in organizing the National Public Health School (ENSP). 

April 2003-June 2004

Interviewees: Adauto José Gonçalves de Araújo, Arlindo Fábio Gómez de Souza and Luís Fernando Ferreira da Silva, Eduardo de Azeredo, Elsa Ramos, Fernando Leitão, Hélio Wanderley Uchôa, Lenita Peixoto Vasconcelos, Luiz Fernando Rocha Ferreira da Silva, Maria do Carmo Leal, Paulo Marchiori Buss, and Szachna Eliasz Cynamon

Virgínia Portocarrero Personal Collection

The collection comprises 16 tapes recorded by Portocarrero over the course of her career as a nurse with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) and in her other work. The recordings are part of her personal archives, which were donated to the Casa in 2008. Twelve are tapes of herself and four are of songs. They are not dated.

A History of Polio and its Eradication in Brazil

Developed under a partnership between Fiocruz and the Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), this research project studied the history of polio and the process of eradicating it in Brazil. The team was divided into three sub-groups, responsible for analyzing the disease in Brazil and especially its eradication, by examining: iconography (posters and photographs from vaccination campaigns); textual records (primary and secondary sources); and oral records (creation of an oral history collection). The 31 collected interviews address such matters as the history of the earliest vaccination campaigns, health communication policies and National Vaccine Days, the physical rehabilitation of individuals who suffered lasting effects, the process of producing the polio vaccine and the role of laboratories, the importance of epidemiological surveillance, and other important aspects of this history.

November 2000-June 2002

Interviewees: Airton Fischmann, Akira Homma, Anita Ivoni Camilotti Monteiro, Arcelino Bitar, Archimedes Theodoro, Arlindo Fábio Gômez de Sousa, Ciro de Quadros, Cláudio do Amaral Júnior, Cláudio Marcos da Silveira, Cristina Maria Vieira da Rocha, Edson Elias da Silva, Eduardo Severiano Ponce Maranhão, Elizabeth Marques, Fábio Moherdaui, Fernando Laender, Guido Antonio Espírito Santo Palmeira, Helvécio Bueno, Hermann Schatzmayr, Isabel Stefano, Ivanildo Tajra Franzosi, João Baptista Risi Junior, João Lima Filho, José Fernando de Souza Verani, Maria Cristina Pedreira, Maria da Luz Fernandes Leal, Maria de Lourdes de Souza Maia, Maria Lúcia Carnelosso, Mitiko Fujita, Mozart de Abreu e Lima, Oacyr de Almeida Pinto, and Roberto Becker

The Aggeu Magalhães Research Center History and Memory Project

The project was developed as part of the commemorations of the 45th anniversary of the Aggeu Magalhães Institute, located in Recife and attached to Fiocruz since 1970. Individuals from various areas of the institute were interviewed, including current and former directors, researchers, and administrative staff. The life history method was used, which allowed each researcher to paint a panorama of daily life in the state of Pernambuco and re-create the institution’s trajectory from his or her own view.

December 1995-August 1996

Interviewees: Aggeu Magalhães Filho, Alexandre Bezerra de Carvalho, Alzira Maria Paiva de Almeida, André Freire Furtado, Arcelino Ferreira Farias, Célio Rodrigues de Almeida, Diva Vitória Cardim, Eridan Coutinho, Frederico Guilherme Coutinho Abath, Frederico Adolfo Simões Barbosa, Gerusa Dreyer, Hélio Bezerra Coutinho, José Carlos de Morais, Luciana Abrantes, Marcelo Vasconcelos, Otamires Alves da Silva, Plenete Cavalcante, Saul Tavares de Melo, and Sérgio Arouca

History and Public Health: Cancer Control Policies in Brazil

The collection gathers the accounts of social actors who played various roles and whose experiences allow us to analyze the historical process of devising institutional policies to combat cancer in Brazil. These stories inform our understanding of how practices to combat cancer gained meaning within the overall panorama of health policies and how the latter fit in with various political, economic, and social scenarios. The career span of each interviewee set the timeframe. The interviews were part of a research project conducted by the Department of Social Sciences at the National Public Health School (ENSP), with funding through the National Campaign against Cancer. The project produced the publication História e Saúde Pública: a política de controle do câncer no Brasil (History and public health: cancer control policy in Brazil), edited by the researcher Regina Cele Bodstein.

December 1984-December 1985

Interviewees: Adair Eiras de Araújo, Ary Frauzino Pereira, Carmem Prudente, Edelberto Luiz da Silva, Edmur Flávio Pastorello, Francisco Fialho, João Carlos Cabral, Jorge de Marsillac Motta, José Monteiro de Castro dos Santos, Ligia Pratini de Moraes, Luiz de Oliveira Neves, Nildo Eimar de Almeida Aguiar, Osolando Jurice Machado, and Wolfgang Georg Lamprecht

Medical Care under Brazil’s Social Insurance System: A Memory Project

The collection gathers accounts from individuals who helped fashion Brazil’s social insurance system, including physicians, technicians, social workers, politicians, unionists, and leaders from the public and private sectors, among others. The collection constitutes a vital reference for information on the conceptions and policies that became institutionalized down through the history of Brazil’s social insurance system. It also stimulates reflection on potential paths for the future of social insurance in Brazil. The timeframe begins with the Eloy Chaves Act, which stipulated that railroad companies had to establish Retirement and Pension Funds; it closes with the INAMPS policies that are contemporaneous with the study, especially the Unified Decentralized Health System (SUDS). This was one of the earliest projects initiated by the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz shortly after its creation in 1986, along with the Manguinhos Memory Project. It received funding from INAMPS.

March 1986-January 1988

Interviewees: Algy de Medeiros, Aloysio de Salles Fonseca, Aluízio Alves, Armando de Oliveira Assis, Carlos Jourdan, Celso Barroso Leite, Demisthóclides Baptista, Dermeval Santana, Djalma Chastinet Contreras, Eli Baia de Almeida, Enilda Lins da Cruz Gouveia, Fioravanti Alonso Di Piero, Francisco Laranja, Francisco Torres de Oliveira, Geraldo Augusto de Faria Baptista, Hélio Beltrão, Jessé Montello, João Batista Ramos, José Dias Corrêa Sobrinho, José Fuks, José Gomes Talarico, José de Segadas Vianna, Lauro Jurandir de Castro Leão, Leila Maria Bugalho, Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento e Silva, Luiz Moura, Luiz Viegas da Motta Lima, Mário Duffles, Moacyr Velloso Cardoso de Oliveira, Murilo Villela Bastos, Nildo de Almeida Aguiar, Odilon Duarte Baptista, Paulo da Silva Cabral, Rio Nogueira, Severino Montenegro, Waldemar Luiz Alves, and Zélio Coutinho

Public Health in Brazil Memory Project

The project undertook a historical analysis of the institutional development of public health in Brazil. Interviews were used to capture the individual stories of public health physicians who played eminent roles in the history of Brazilian public health and who helped define public policies for the sector from 1930 to 1980. The investigation produced the research tool “Cronologia de atores, instituções e políticas de saúde” (Chronology of actors, institutions, and policies in health).

December 1993-September 1999

Interviewees: Aldo Villas-Boas, Alfredo Bica, Almir Castro, Aristides Limaverde, Bertoldo Arruda, Bichat de Almeida Rodrigues, Celso Arcoverde de Freitas, Fausto Magalhães da Silveira, Fausto P. Guimarães, Walter Lezer, Walter Silva, and Wilson Fadul

Tuberculosis in Brazil Memory Project

The collection comprises accounts by physicians who worked with tuberculosis in Brazil from the 1930s on, either by teaching, doing research, or in the employ of control services. The project goal was to gather information from interviewees in order to reconstruct the history of tuberculosis, focusing on such issues as the social representations of the disease, advances in treatment, and health policies during the period. The project was conducted under an agreement between the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz and the former National Campaign against Tuberculosis. Its continuity was assured by two National Health Foundation agencies: the Professor Hélio Fraga Reference Center and the National Coordination for Public Health Pneumology.

May 1990-September 1992

Interviewees: Aldo Villas-Boas, Aloysio Veiga de Paula, Germano Gerhardt Filho, Jayme Santos Neves, José Antonio Nunes de Miranda, José Fonseca da Cunha, José Rosemberg, José Silveira, Milton Fontes Magarão, Newton Manhães Bethlem, and Raphael de Paula Souza

The Oswaldo Cruz Institute's Scientific Collections Memory Project

The collection consists of oral accounts by the professionals directly involved in creating, conserving, and disseminating the institute’s scientific collections. It is hoped that this collection, along with material from the institute’s other holdings, will inform analyses of these individuals’ roles in constructing scientific traditions at Fiocruz and, on a broader scale, within Brazil’s biomedical sciences. Interviewees included current and former curators, researchers, technicians, and other actors who played significant roles in the history of the collections. Fiocruz’s scientific collections contain especially noteworthy holdings in the areas of entomology, helminthology, mycology, malacology, and yellow fever.

November 1994-February 2001

Interviewees: Anna Kohn Hoineff, Delir Correia Serra Freire, Dely Noronha de Bragança Magalhães Pinto, Dirce Lacombe, Herman Lent, Itália Kerr, José Jurberg, Maria Inez de Moura Sarquis, Orlando Vicente Ferreira and Sebastião José de Oliveira, Orlando Vicente Ferreirak Sebastião José de Oliveira, and Wladimir Lobato Paraense

Manguinhos Memory Project

The project comprises 30 interviews that endeavor to reconstruct the history of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute through the experiences of some of its scientists, aides, and administrative staff. The interviews address matters related to teaching, research, institutional and governmental policies, the production of therapeutics, and the development of science. They focus primarily on the period from the 1930s to the 1970s (the decade that opened with the “Manguinhos Massacre”). The project received funding through the Brazilian Innovation Agency (FINEP) and was one of the first projects to be instituted at the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, shortly after its creation in 1986.

January 1986-October 1989

Interviewees: Amilar Tavares, Amilcar Vianna Martins, Attílio Borriello, Augusto Perissé, Carlos Chagas Filho, Constança Arraes de Alencar, Dalton Mario Hamilton, Domingos Arthur Machado Filho, Fernando Ubatuba, Francisco Gomes, Francisco Laranja, Haity Moussatché, Hamlet Aor, Hugo de Souza Lopes, José Cunha, José Fonseca da Cunha, Leônidas Deane, Manuel Isnard Teixeira, Maria José Deane, Mário Vianna Dias, Masao Goto, Miriam Tendler, Moacyr Vaz de Andrade, Orlando Guerra Junior, Pedrina de Oliveira, Sebastião José de Oliveira, Sylvia Hasselmann (on Walter Oswaldo Cruz), Tito Cavalcanti, Venâncio Bonfim, and Wladimir Lobato Paraense

N.B.: The interviews with Leônidas Deane, Maria José Deane, and Miriam Tendler are not available for consultation.

Memory and the History of Hansen’s Disease in Brazil Through those who Lived it (1960-2000)

The prime aim of the project was to capture the memories and experiences of healthcare providers and former patients of Hansen’s disease (leprosy). Interviews were conducted with individuals who had worked directly with Hansen’s disease in a variety of ways – for example, by devising disease control policies, as hospital administrators, doing basic research, or providing patient care. Other interviews were conducted with those who contracted the disease and were forced into isolation, in keeping with medical practice until the 1970s. The interviews make it possible to recover recollections of aspects like: survival strategies at a time when the disease bore an immense stigma, the challenges of basic research on the unique Hansen bacillus, the medications used to control the disease, the emergence of associations like the Movement for the Reintegration of People Afflicted by Hansen's Disease (Morhan), and the clashes between cosmiatrics and public health dermatology.

August 2001-August 2009

Interviewees: Abraão Rotberg, Adilson Pereira dos Santos, Agenor Mendes Filho, Aguinaldo Gonçalves, Antônio Ademar Barahuma Bezerra, Antônio de Oliveira Borges Júnior, Antônio Pereira da Silva, Arnaldo Sobrinho de Moraes, Arthur Custódio Moreira de Souza, Benedito Vieira de Figueiredo, Clóvis Lombardi, Cristiano Cláudio Torres, Diltor Vladimir Araújo Opromolla, Dora Martins Cypreste, Euzenir Nunes Sarno, Fabíola Aguiar Nunes, Francisca Estrela Dantas Maroja, Fuad Abílio Abdala, Germano Traple, Gerson Fernando Mendes Pereira, Gerson Oliveira Penna, Hortêncio Ribeiro Maciel, Isabel Bezerra da Silva and Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos, Jair Ferreira, João Batista Dumont, Luis Aurélio Alves Orsini, Luis Tranquilino de Lima, Luiz Marino Bechelli, Lygia Madeira César de Andrade, Marcos da Cunha Lopes Virmond, Maria Angela Alcalde Torrecilla, Maria da Graça Souza Cunha, Maria Eugênia Noviski Gallo, Maria Leide Wand-Del-Rey de Oliveira, Osmar Mattos, René Garrido Neves, Rubem David Azulay, Silvia Vecellio, Sinésio Talhari, Thomas Ferran Frist, Ulrico Frederico da Gama, Valdemir Soares de Miranda, Vera Lúcia Gomes de Andrade, Wagner Nogueira, William John Woods, and Zoica Bakirtzief

Social Memory of Health and the Environment: A Research and Action Project with Family Farmers in Sumidouro, Rio de Janeiro

The project explored the health status of rural workers and their families in an olive-growing region of Rio de Janeiro state, where reliance on pesticides was heavy and soil management practices were inadequate and environmentally damaging. Working with family farmers to change this situation meant recognizing the reasons behind these practices, that is, identifying true cultural assumptions. It also meant transmitting information about available technical alternatives and the different ways of approaching rural work that were used in the municipality. The overall goal was to construct the social memory of relations between labor, the environment, and health in the municipality. Methodology included oral history and document research. Young agricultural workers were recruited to take part in all stages of the research. It was hoped that the project would support local oral history, the organization of oral history collections, the exchange of experiences by family farmers using different methods, and the organization of an exhibit on health and the environment.

October 2006-December 2008

Interviewees: Adilson da Rocha Charles and Rodrigo de Castro Pereira, Alaor Brügger Neves, Altair da Silva Fenes, Altivo José da Silva, Anna Bertoloto de Oliveira, Bruno Pessanha, Cristhiano Joaquim de Jesus, Georgina Rodrigues Bertoloto, Iná da Silva Torres, Irani da Rocha Charles, Isabel da Silva, João Batista Miranda, José Ildephonso Chermouth, José da Silva, Júlia Ferreira da Silva de Andrade, Luzia Porto Pinto, Lizete Evangelista da Conceição, Maria Cândida Gaspar, Maria José Storani Gonçalves, Paulo de Souza Mattos, Petronilha Rosa dos Santos, Rosa Noguchi, and Viviane da Conceição Zão

The Psychiatric Reform Movement in Brazil: History and Memory 

The project was a byproduct of the “Psychiatry in Brazil Memory Project,” conducted by the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz and the National Public Health School, both of which are part of Fiocruz. Interviews were aimed at gathering recollections of the changes that took place in the care of patients with mental disorders before and after Brazil’s psychiatric reform. The interviewees had strongest ties to the 1970s and 1980s, which was the period that witnessed the emergence both of treatment experiences that emphasized the institutionalization of psychiatric institutions and of changes in mental health care in Brazil.

February 1998-May 2003

Interviewees: Adolfo Hoirish, Domingos Sávio do Nascimento Alves, Edmar de Oliveira, Edson Guimarães Saggese, Lia Riedel, Miguel Chalub, Paulo Duarte de Carvalho Amarante, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado, and Washington Loyello

The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Campus: Buildings, Records, and Restorative Interventions

The prime goal of the project was to organize the foundation’s architectural blueprints and make them available for consultation, for the purpose both of building maintenance and of research in other areas of interest. Put together in 2008, a multidisciplinary team of professionals from architecture, history, and archival science organized some 2,000 architectural blueprints of campus buildings. Project interviews recorded the professional experiences of two architects who lived in different eras (one began his career in the 1940s and the other in the 1970s) and who contributed to the history of Fiocruz’s architectural heritage.

March-July 2010

Interviewees: FInterviewees: Foroaldo Albano and Jorge de Azevedo Castro

Nossa Senhora dos Remédios Pavilion: History and Heritage Preservation

The project created an audiovisual archive drawn from research on community memory and its relation to the establishment and development of the urban area of the former Juliano Moreira Colony. This resource may be used for exhibit purposes or to make a documentary. The focus was on the history of the building that housed tuberculosis patients, known as Nossa Senhora dos Remédios Pavilion. Built in the early 1940s, the pavilion began serving as lodgings for workers and their families in the 1970s. The process of occupying the building for residential purposes occurred in a disorderly fashion and Fiocruz eventually turned it over to the Fiocruz Campus Atlantic Forest for revitalization.

October 2007-January 2008

Interviewees: Ana Lúcia, Antonieta, Cristina, Damião, Danuza, Helena Flor, Leda, Maria José, Mariano, and Nancy

Medicinal Plants: The History and Memory of Research and Science Policies in Brazil

The project analyzed the organization and institutionalization of the scientific community that engaged in amassing knowledge of natural health products and particularly of medicinal plants in Brazil. Documental sources were surveyed and analyzed in parallel with the collection of oral sources. The interviewees were scientists and professors with ties to universities and research institutes in the field, selected because of their academic roles and their participation as leaders and organizers of research groups. Two technicians from the Health Ministry who played relevant roles in the process were also interviewed. Linked to the project “Revisiting Carlos Chagas’s Amazon,” the project analyzed the scientific knowledge produced by these scientists and compared it with the folk use of medicinal plants. 

November 1995-December 2000

Interviewees: Alaíde Braga, Antonio José Lapa, Benjamin Gilbert, Cyrene dos Santos Alves, Delby Fernandes, Edmundo Machado, Elisaldo L. A. Carlini, Francisco José de Abreu Matos, João Batista Calixto, Marcelo Sobral, Margareth Formiga and Rinalda Araújo, Nicolai Sharapin, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Otto Gottlieb, Paulo Barragat, and Walter Mors

Reform or Counter-Reform? The History of Brazil’s Unified Health System and Related Perspectives 

The project captured the history of the SUS and analyzed certain tendencies and perspectives regarding its process of solidification. Although the SUS is a unique experience that ran counter to neoliberal reforms, little is known about it in Latin America and the Caribbean.

January-August 2004

Interviewees: Henri Jouval Júnior, Hésio Cordeiro, and José Carvalho de Noronha

Revisiting Carlos Chagas’s Amazon. From Rubber to Biodiversity: The Negro and Branco Rivers

The project gathered accounts from health agents, rural community leaders, politicians, rubber tappers, physicians, and other social actors in the region of the Negro and Branco rivers.

August-September 1995

Revisiting Carlos Chagas’s Amazon. From Rubber to Biodiversity: The Acre and Purus Rivers

The project gathered accounts from health agents, rural community leaders, politicians, rubber tappers, physicians, and other social actors in the region of the Acre and Purus rivers.

January-February 1997.