Diseases Have No Eyes : Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice

Diseases Have No Eyes investigates how communities in Central Valley, California deal with Valley Fever, a painful illness caused by a soil fungus. The airborne disease's symptoms can last from two months to a patient's lifetime and may be fatal. Nearly a third of the national cases are reported in California, where those infected are disproportionately farmworkers and people incarcerated in the region. Poverty, pollution, and prison expose these groups to cumulative environmental and health risks that deny Valley Fever patients adequate medical treatment.

Sarah M. Rios examines how these populations face racial health disparities and develop strategies of care. She connects environmental justice activists as well as prison advocates and abolitionists who mobilize protests and issue calls to action to the past and ongoing efforts for medical autonomy and healthy communities. Diseases Have No Eyes emphasizes that vulnerable groups have developed an expertise and understanding of Valley Fever out of necessity. In the process, these community members offer an alternative public health response that extends beyond the individual body.

In the series Insubordinate Spaces