A bracing spotlight on the avoidable causes of the COVID-19 Eldercide in the United States. Twenty percent of the Americans who have died of COVID since 2020 have been older and disabled adults residing in nursing homes--even though they make up fewer than one percent of the US population. Something about this catastrophic loss of life in government-monitored facilities has never added up.
Until now. In American Eldercide, activist and scholar Margaret Morganroth Gullette investigates this tragic public health crisis with a passionate voice and razor-sharp attention to detail, showing us that nothing about it was inevitable. By unpacking the decisions that led to discrimination against nursing home residents, revealing how governments, doctors, and media reinforced ageist or ableist biases, and collecting the previously little-heard voices of the residents who survived, Gullette helps us understand the workings of what she persuasively calls an eldercide.
Gullette argues that it was our collective indifference, fueled by the heightened ageism of the COVID-19 era, that prematurely killed this vulnerable population. Compounding that deadly indifference is our own panic about aging and a social bias in favor of youth-based decisions about lifesaving care. The compassion this country failed to muster for the residents of our nursing facilities motivated Gullette to pen an act of remembrance, issuing a call for pro-aging changes in policy and culture that would improve long-term care for everyone.
Industry Reviews
"A masterpiece. Gullette writes with passion, a critical eye, and an often-sly sense of humor. She shows, in devastating detail, how we as a society failed our elderly population-and the lessons we must learn in order to avoid a similar catastrophe in the future." * Harry Moody, former Vice President for Academic Affairs, AARP *
"With unflinching detail, American Eldercide indicts government indifference and failed regulation during the COVID pandemic. Poignant portraits of real people bring us face to face with individuals who are all our responsibility. This powerful book should be read by anyone who cares about public health, dignified aging, and government accountability." * Katherine S. Newman, author of Downhill From Here: Retirement Insecurity in the Age of Inequality *
"Unflinching and powerful. Through fierce and evocative prose, Gullette exposes the harsh realities many older adults faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and lays bare the systemic failures and personal tragedies that unfolded. American Eldercide underscores the urgent need to address ageism in our institutions-and ourselves." * Tracey Gendron, author of Ageism Unmasked *
"A remarkable and vivid description of one of the worst chapters in the history of nursing homes-orchestrated by corporate greed and profiteering. It is a wake-up call for the need for total reform or elimination of the institutions where older people are sent to die without dignity or care." * Charlene Harrington, University of California, San Francisco *
"In her incendiary new book, Gullette explains why the deaths of over 150,000 residents of nursing facilities were preventable, laying out the governmental failures and intersecting biases that legitimized their appalling abandonment. Ultimately, she places those lost residents where they rightly belong: at the center of a shared vision of a better future for us all." * Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks *
"American Eldercide should stand beside Betty Friedan's Fountain of Age and Dr. Robert N. Butler's Pulitzer Prize-winning Why Survive? Being Old in America as essential reading about aging and ageism in the U.S.. Incisively researched and compellingly written, Gullette's riveting volume underscores the vitality and resilience of so many older Americans, especially those too readily dismissed as expendable by our youth-obsessed medical-industrial complex." * Paul Kleyman, Co-Founder and National Coordinator, Journalists Network on Generations *
"The stories and interviews that Gullette presents in this book will grab your attention. Promoting dialogue about the deep ageism in society is vital to making meaningful improvements now, in policy and funding for long-term care settings such as nursing homes." * Alice Bonner, Senior Advisor for Aging, Institute for Healthcare Improvement *
"American Eldercide pulls no punches exposing the greed of uncaring nursing home operators and misfeasance of the bureaucrats failing to protect countless vulnerable residents. It's a stark warning about the pitfalls of aging, and a wake-up call to work for transformational change to keep us all from sharing the stories of Vera, Betty, and so many others. Gullette offers a common-sense prescription for what would lead to aging with dignity." * Richard T. Moore, co-founder of Dignity Alliance and former state legislator *
