Citation

Yankauer A. Am. J. Public Health 1981; 71(8): 797-798.

Affiliation

Editor, American Journal of Public Health

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, American Public Health Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7020441

PMCID

PMC1620006

Abstract

Excerpted from the editorial:

"Our merchants, animated by a regard for the public good, will no doubt submit with cheerfulness and patience to the loss of time and expense." So wrote the newly constituted Board of health of the City of Boston in 1799, referring to quarantine regulations intended to prevent a recurrence of yellow fever.

Thus, in its elegant language, the Board of health laid down the principles which govern all public health action: the public good over the private good, the promotion and preservation of life and a democratic consensus that will support both the principles and the specifics involved. However, to be successful, public health actions must not only adhere to sound principles, they must also be grounded in scientific knowledge.

It may seem a long jump in public health history from yellow fever in 1799 to motor vehicle accidents in 1981; however, the appearance is deceptive. Writing 11 years before the founding of the Boston Board of health, Johan Peter Frank might just as well have been speaking today: "If our vehicles could be made altogether safer, many thousands of persons would be protected from terrible accidents which threaten them on their continuous journeys because of the unsafe construction of their vehicles....No matter how great the force of a body put into...violent action may be, it would show ignorance of the forces of mechanics if one doubted the possibility of prevailing over them."

In spite of this assurance about the specifics of a public health action, one is far less sure that the same principles that held in 1799 still hold in our country in 1981. We have already witnessed withdrawal of the legal protection afforded by motorcycle helmets in many states (with a resulting loss of lives).At a time when we might have anticipated extension of protection to infants and young children, we may now witness the withdrawal of federal standards of automobile safety in the evidence that they have saved lives. far from submitting to the standards with cheerfulness and patience, our modern car merchants have converted them to a whipping boy that disguises their own inefficiencies and lack of foresight.

The movement against vehicle safety standards is only one of the many similar recent retrogressions. Such actions against the public health can only be viewed as symptoms of a sick society. It is an upside world in which a basic public health principle, preserving life, has become the catchword for a zealous minority intent on its own narrow goals to the exclusion of all other considerations -- a society where consensus about the public good is fractured by single issue fringe elements. Therefore, it is not surprising that deregulation has become the order of the day, mindlessly sweeping the good as well as the bad into the same dust bin.

The public health community must bring what it knows to the attention of legislators and to the public they serve, selectively and specifically rather than rhetorically. Some of us in vulnerable positions may be harmed in the process. However, in the long run, if we chose our stands wisely, if our aim is to preserve life rather than status, we will be helping a sick society to heal itself and laying the groundwork for public health to emerge from the current passion for ignorant deregulation stronger and more preserving of life than ever.

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Language: en