8 ms·

The Ethical Principles of Public Health

peter_d_sherman 4y ago
>"5. Public health requires public trust. Public health recommendations should present facts as the basis for guidance, and never employ fear or shame to sway or manipulate the public. 6. Medical interventions should not be forced or coerced upon a population, but rather should be voluntary and based on informed consent. Public health officials are advisors, not rule setters, and provide information and resources for individuals to make informed decisions. 7. Public health authorities must be honest and transparent, both with what is known and what is not known. Advice should be evidence-based and explained by data, and authorities must acknowledge errors or changes in evidence as soon as they are made aware of them. 8. Public health scientists and practitioners should avoid conflicts-of-interest, and any unavoidable conflicts-of-interest must be clearly stated. 9. In public health, open civilized debate is profoundly important. It is unacceptable for public health professionals to censor, silence or intimidate members of the public or other public health scientists or practitioners."
- alfor 4y ago
  9. Is crazy. There is a many things we can do at home to reduce risk of covid. They get zero visibility. People have been programmed to see everything outside the narrative as quackery. But it’s deeper than covid, it’s the general modus operandi of modern medicine.
verisimi 4y ago
1. 'Make sure your wife is overseeing your ethical decisions - you won't get anything done without the right support structure in place' - Fauci. 2. 'Work for 40 years in the same job, be responsible for allocation of resources received from pharmaceutical companies, never retire!' - also Fauci.
- peteradio 4y ago
  3. Fund gain-of-function research.
harimau777 4y ago
It seems to me that these sorts of principles are incomplete if they don't engage with the fact that quarantines are a well established part of the social contract of all nations that I'm aware of. Basically, there's a balance between avoiding coercion and holding people accountable for the externalities of irresponsible behavior. A reasonable tradeoff to me seems to be that people do not have to take precautions like vaccination and masking but if so they can be restricted from public society.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  You are totally missing the other side's responsibility with regards to the social contract. Part of the social contract is the responsible use of that coercive power to actually provide social benefit. Capricious misuse of power is not aligned with the social contract. So, for example, it would be unethical to coerce vaccination when vaccination does not stop the spread. It also would be unethical to coerce vaccination against a rapidly evolving pathogen when the vaccine is at least 2 variants behind and shows little if any efficacy against current variants. It also would be unethical to have lockdowns for a respiratory virus when there are no RCTs that demonstrate lockdowns stop the spread of such a virus. It would also be unethical to enforce cloth masking when the RCTs demonstrate negative effectiveness of cloth masking for respiratory viruses (more people get sick). All of these are massive violations of the social contract specifically because they would never have been effective. And even if you excuse the first few months under the guise of "We didn't know" the data rolled in very quickly on all those items but the policies remained. So yes, the social contract might mean I have to be quarantined under certain conditions. But you don't get to toss whatever bullshit you want under the social contract.
  - verisimi 4y ago
    I signed no contract. There's no social contract. Its literally a figment of your imagination.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      I agree with you, but the social contract argument fails here even if you imagine a fantasy world where it would exist. I try to meet people where they are. Leftists arguments against leftists. Right-wing arguments against the right wing. And social contract arguments against social contractors.
giantg2 4y ago
I guess number 6 is often ignored?
user982 4y ago
In the spirit of 8. Public health scientists and practitioners should avoid conflicts-of-interest, and any unavoidable conflicts-of-interest must be clearly stated. "Hillsdale [College] is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures." (https://www.levernews.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-war-on-covid/ https://www.levernews.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-...)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- specialist 4y ago
  Yes and... This latest agitprop is a rehash of anti-mask The Great Barrington Declaration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Academy_for_Science_and_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Academy_for_... Salon's Matthew Rozsa's recap of that debacle: https://www.salon.com/2020/11/19/this-doctor-is-popular-among-conservatives--but-his-views-on-lockdowns-are-very-controversial/ https://www.salon.com/2020/11/19/this-doctor-is-popular-amon... I just spot checked some of the signatories of these Ethical Principles. Rough. Here's two representative samples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pand... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone > ...are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures Including The Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Allan_P._Kirby_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Allan_P._Kir... -- I think it's fine to do retrospectives. What I used to call "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". What works, what didn't, what would you change. A pandemic is a crisis. Of course mistakes will be made. Learn and do better next time. Attachment to notions like "herd immunity" wrt to this coronavirus is just nutty. I'm just a noob, but my impression is that this coronavirus mutates so fast that herd immunity isn't likely. I'm okay with comparing prevalence of mask wearing with outcomes. There are always tradeoffs. Learning from this experience will helps us better model public health responses for future pandemics. Lastly, with today's charged discourse, I utterly dismiss any missive that does not encourage vaccination as partisan concern trolling, or worse.
setikites 4y ago
6. Public health emergencies like a deadly, highly infectious pandemic require emergency measures. Quarantine the infection to reduce the spread. Spend public funds to create and deliver vaccines. Prohibit access to public resources like schools without proof of vaccination.
- briantakita 4y ago
  6. There are no silver bullets. People have the right to assess their personal risks & do not have the right to coerce others. During the time of pandemics, irrational fear is high. Solutions offered as silver bullets should be viewed with increased scrutiny.
dcanelhas 4y ago
I'm missing the arguments for why any of these guidelines are supposedly ethical. The implication of these are that a handful of individual's rights to refuse e.g. vaccines is appropriately balanced against a potentially huge loss of life and societal disruption. I guess it depends on what system of ethics one goes by. If one believes that you should NEVER force someone to do something against their will and accept the losses as unfortunate but preferable to life under "oppression" this might be defended as ethical. I think that from a principle of least harm, forcing people to get vaccines is not too difficult to justify, however.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  A major assumption in the 'principle of least harm' on forcing people to get vaccines is that the vaccines are well-characterized in terms of efficacy and side-effects. In the case of the smallpox vaccine, it was a sterilizing vaccine (i.e. there were zero breakthrough cases post-vaccination as far as I know, so it could be used to effectively eliminate the virus from human populations), and the side-effects, though quite severe in some cases (far more than anything reported with Covid vaccines as far as I know), were well-characterized. For example: Inoculation with vaccinia virus is highly effective for the prevention of smallpox infection, but it is associated with several known side effects that range from mild and self-limited to severe and life-threatening. (2003) "Smallpox Vaccine: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" http://www.clinmedres.org/content/1/2/87.short http://www.clinmedres.org/content/1/2/87.short The Covid vaccines are uniformly non-sterilizing, i.e. breakthrough cases are common, even apparently the norm (this may be due to rapid evolution of new virus strains relative to older clinical trials) and the side effects seem to be relatively poorly characterized (heart issues with young adults? fact or fiction?). Hence, glowing stories like this Nov 2020 report on the Moderna vaccine might need some reconsideration: https://www.science.org/content/article/absolutely-remarkable-no-one-who-got-modernas-vaccine-trial-developed-severe-covid-19 https://www.science.org/content/article/absolutely-remarkabl... One could argue, at this point, that a Covid vaccination is really only net beneficial to the elderly, obese and immunocompromised (comparable arguments have been made for the influenza vaccine). One could also argue that for-profit pharmaceutical corporations (who have refused to release patent rights to other manufacturers, which would drive down costs) have large conflicts of interest relative to their desire to maximize profits by pushing vaccination on those for whom it serves no beneficial purpose.
photochemsyn 4y ago
Food for thought: "Greenough, P. (1995). Intimidation, coercion and resistance in the final stages of the South Asian Smallpox Eradication Campaign, 1973–1975." https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00035-6 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00035-6 Assignment: As an exercise in arguing both sides of an issue with equal fervor, construct arguments in favor of coercive measures (for example, without such measures, eradication of smallpox would have failed) and against coercive measures (for example, they created a lasting resentment and distrust of medical experts which led to future problems in public health efforts). Extra credit: set up two Twitter accounts which marshall the opposing arguments and have a flame war with yourself.
- 0thgen 4y ago
  genius. maybe also publicly agree with yourself to show people it's possible
mhb 4y ago
0. Don't lie to the public. Even though you may think it is helpful in the short run, it is devastating in the long run. All the rest is commentary.
- neilv 4y ago
  > 0. Don't lie I think this is also good advice for engineering teams, companies, humans.
  - londgine 4y ago
    But it's not that damaging if it's not a trust based institution. When Facebook writes next to their ads "recommended for you", I know that's a lie. But it doesn't bother me that much. When government medical leaders say that wearing a mask is worse for you, unless you go through 6 years of medical training to learn how to properly put on a mask, I ignore almost any future advice from them.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      > When Facebook writes next to their ads "recommended for you", I know that's a lie. In what sense is it a lie? They are right there recommending it for you.
VictorPath 4y ago
Coronavirus hit New Zealand in 2020, and by May 2nd twenty people had died. New Zealand implemented lockdowns and ordered vaccines, although they took a while to come. By the end of October 2021, 28 people had died of Covid in New Zealand. They had massively attended sporting events at the height of the world pandemic as coronavirus was undetectable in the country. Once pretty much any one who wanted to be vaccinated got vaccinated, they loosened the rules. Whereas in the US you have immediate resistance from these Christian fundamentalists (Hillsdale is Christian fundamentalist). Over one million Americans are dead of Covid, lots of people have long Covid, and anecdotally hospitals were full and all hospital patients saw delays in care, so I am sure people who could not get cancer treatments died due to these nuts.
- peteradio 4y ago
  > dead of Covid w/covid
  - _djo_ 4y ago
    That statement immediately exposes you as a crank. Millions of excess deaths happened, deaths that would not have happened without COVID infections. I had otherwise perfectly healthy friends and family either die or be stuck with long term conditions from it. There’s value in debating the best measures taken to handle the pandemic, there’s none whatsoever in denying it was even a thing.
    - peteradio 4y ago
      No, its important to be accurate about what numbers are representing. OP is misquoting an important statistic and for whatever reason you see fit to back that up with no cited sources and unverifiable anecdotes. My anecdote is that Covid did not kill anyone I know.
      - _djo_ 4y ago
        Nope. There’s nothing new in the way COVID deaths are reported, and in fact making the distinction you’re demanding is what would be the break from standard practice. Death certificates have for decades had contributory causes listed with the main one being the most proximate cause. For instance if someone has severe hypertension and then has a heart attack both are usually listed but the heart attack is the cause of death. I don’t see any need to debunk it further because the claim is patent nonsense and I’m surprised to see anyone still repeating it after all this time.
jdthedisciple 4y ago
Reasonable principles. I think by now most of us know that in the most recent pandemic, the public has been repeatedly deceived if not straightup lied to regarding efficacy and side-effects of the vaccines as well as the origin of the virus, and public individuals shamed and silenced for stating things that half a year later became mainstream news, over and over again.
reureu 4y ago
FYI -- Hillsdale College does not have a public health program and is not an accredited school of public health (SPH). Their document on "Ethical Principles of Public Health" feels more political than oriented around public health. There are people at actual SPHs that work on public health ethics, it might be worth focusing on those instead of amplifying whatever this is.
- junofan 4y ago
  I don’t think letting a small group of insiders define their own ethics is a good idea.
- VictorPath 4y ago
  Well let's see which health experts signed it... Roger Severino, vice president of the Heritage Foundation. He's a lawyer with no medical training. I guess his credentials for health is Trump appointed him as an HHS lawyer to undo what Severino called the "radical gender ideology" of Obama.
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
  This is a declaration of principles, not an appeal to credentialism.
  - reureu 4y ago
    It just seems worthwhile to note that this isn't coming from an organization with any history of working or studying or caring about public health. The public is free to advocate or believe in these principles, just know where they're coming from. It's kind of like how many engineers get upset when non-technical PMs dictate how they should think about or build systems.
- joelberman 4y ago
  Which ones do you object to? What would you prefer?
  - reureu 4y ago

>"5. Public health requires public trust. Public health recommendations should present facts as the basis for guidance, and never employ fear or shame to sway or manipulate the public. 6. Medical interventions should not be forced or coerced upon a population, but rather should be voluntary and based on informed consent. Public health officials are advisors, not rule setters, and provide information and resources for individuals to make informed decisions. 7. Public health authorities must be honest and transparent, both with what is known and what is not known. Advice should be evidence-based and explained by data, and authorities must acknowledge errors or changes in evidence as soon as they are made aware of them. 8. Public health scientists and practitioners should avoid conflicts-of-interest, and any unavoidable conflicts-of-interest must be clearly stated. 9. In public health, open civilized debate is profoundly important. It is unacceptable for public health professionals to censor, silence or intimidate members of the public or other public health scientists or practitioners."

alfor 4y ago
9. Is crazy. There is a many things we can do at home to reduce risk of covid. They get zero visibility. People have been programmed to see everything outside the narrative as quackery. But it’s deeper than covid, it’s the general modus operandi of modern medicine.

verisimi 4y ago

1. 'Make sure your wife is overseeing your ethical decisions - you won't get anything done without the right support structure in place' - Fauci. 2. 'Work for 40 years in the same job, be responsible for allocation of resources received from pharmaceutical companies, never retire!' - also Fauci.

peteradio 4y ago
3. Fund gain-of-function research.

harimau777 4y ago

It seems to me that these sorts of principles are incomplete if they don't engage with the fact that quarantines are a well established part of the social contract of all nations that I'm aware of. Basically, there's a balance between avoiding coercion and holding people accountable for the externalities of irresponsible behavior. A reasonable tradeoff to me seems to be that people do not have to take precautions like vaccination and masking but if so they can be restricted from public society.

Consultant32452 4y ago
You are totally missing the other side's responsibility with regards to the social contract. Part of the social contract is the responsible use of that coercive power to actually provide social benefit. Capricious misuse of power is not aligned with the social contract. So, for example, it would be unethical to coerce vaccination when vaccination does not stop the spread. It also would be unethical to coerce vaccination against a rapidly evolving pathogen when the vaccine is at least 2 variants behind and shows little if any efficacy against current variants. It also would be unethical to have lockdowns for a respiratory virus when there are no RCTs that demonstrate lockdowns stop the spread of such a virus. It would also be unethical to enforce cloth masking when the RCTs demonstrate negative effectiveness of cloth masking for respiratory viruses (more people get sick). All of these are massive violations of the social contract specifically because they would never have been effective. And even if you excuse the first few months under the guise of "We didn't know" the data rolled in very quickly on all those items but the policies remained. So yes, the social contract might mean I have to be quarantined under certain conditions. But you don't get to toss whatever bullshit you want under the social contract.
- verisimi 4y ago
  I signed no contract. There's no social contract. Its literally a figment of your imagination.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    I agree with you, but the social contract argument fails here even if you imagine a fantasy world where it would exist. I try to meet people where they are. Leftists arguments against leftists. Right-wing arguments against the right wing. And social contract arguments against social contractors.

giantg2 4y ago

I guess number 6 is often ignored?

user982 4y ago

In the spirit of 8. Public health scientists and practitioners should avoid conflicts-of-interest, and any unavoidable conflicts-of-interest must be clearly stated. "Hillsdale [College] is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures." (https://www.levernews.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-war-on-covid/ https://www.levernews.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-...)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
specialist 4y ago
Yes and... This latest agitprop is a rehash of anti-mask The Great Barrington Declaration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Academy_for_Science_and_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Academy_for_... Salon's Matthew Rozsa's recap of that debacle: https://www.salon.com/2020/11/19/this-doctor-is-popular-among-conservatives--but-his-views-on-lockdowns-are-very-controversial/ https://www.salon.com/2020/11/19/this-doctor-is-popular-amon... I just spot checked some of the signatories of these Ethical Principles. Rough. Here's two representative samples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pand... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone > ...are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures Including The Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Allan_P._Kirby_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Allan_P._Kir... -- I think it's fine to do retrospectives. What I used to call "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". What works, what didn't, what would you change. A pandemic is a crisis. Of course mistakes will be made. Learn and do better next time. Attachment to notions like "herd immunity" wrt to this coronavirus is just nutty. I'm just a noob, but my impression is that this coronavirus mutates so fast that herd immunity isn't likely. I'm okay with comparing prevalence of mask wearing with outcomes. There are always tradeoffs. Learning from this experience will helps us better model public health responses for future pandemics. Lastly, with today's charged discourse, I utterly dismiss any missive that does not encourage vaccination as partisan concern trolling, or worse.

setikites 4y ago

6. Public health emergencies like a deadly, highly infectious pandemic require emergency measures. Quarantine the infection to reduce the spread. Spend public funds to create and deliver vaccines. Prohibit access to public resources like schools without proof of vaccination.

briantakita 4y ago
6. There are no silver bullets. People have the right to assess their personal risks & do not have the right to coerce others. During the time of pandemics, irrational fear is high. Solutions offered as silver bullets should be viewed with increased scrutiny.

dcanelhas 4y ago

I'm missing the arguments for why any of these guidelines are supposedly ethical. The implication of these are that a handful of individual's rights to refuse e.g. vaccines is appropriately balanced against a potentially huge loss of life and societal disruption. I guess it depends on what system of ethics one goes by. If one believes that you should NEVER force someone to do something against their will and accept the losses as unfortunate but preferable to life under "oppression" this might be defended as ethical. I think that from a principle of least harm, forcing people to get vaccines is not too difficult to justify, however.

photochemsyn 4y ago
A major assumption in the 'principle of least harm' on forcing people to get vaccines is that the vaccines are well-characterized in terms of efficacy and side-effects. In the case of the smallpox vaccine, it was a sterilizing vaccine (i.e. there were zero breakthrough cases post-vaccination as far as I know, so it could be used to effectively eliminate the virus from human populations), and the side-effects, though quite severe in some cases (far more than anything reported with Covid vaccines as far as I know), were well-characterized. For example: Inoculation with vaccinia virus is highly effective for the prevention of smallpox infection, but it is associated with several known side effects that range from mild and self-limited to severe and life-threatening. (2003) "Smallpox Vaccine: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" http://www.clinmedres.org/content/1/2/87.short http://www.clinmedres.org/content/1/2/87.short The Covid vaccines are uniformly non-sterilizing, i.e. breakthrough cases are common, even apparently the norm (this may be due to rapid evolution of new virus strains relative to older clinical trials) and the side effects seem to be relatively poorly characterized (heart issues with young adults? fact or fiction?). Hence, glowing stories like this Nov 2020 report on the Moderna vaccine might need some reconsideration: https://www.science.org/content/article/absolutely-remarkable-no-one-who-got-modernas-vaccine-trial-developed-severe-covid-19 https://www.science.org/content/article/absolutely-remarkabl... One could argue, at this point, that a Covid vaccination is really only net beneficial to the elderly, obese and immunocompromised (comparable arguments have been made for the influenza vaccine). One could also argue that for-profit pharmaceutical corporations (who have refused to release patent rights to other manufacturers, which would drive down costs) have large conflicts of interest relative to their desire to maximize profits by pushing vaccination on those for whom it serves no beneficial purpose.

photochemsyn 4y ago

Food for thought: "Greenough, P. (1995). Intimidation, coercion and resistance in the final stages of the South Asian Smallpox Eradication Campaign, 1973–1975." https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00035-6 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00035-6 Assignment: As an exercise in arguing both sides of an issue with equal fervor, construct arguments in favor of coercive measures (for example, without such measures, eradication of smallpox would have failed) and against coercive measures (for example, they created a lasting resentment and distrust of medical experts which led to future problems in public health efforts). Extra credit: set up two Twitter accounts which marshall the opposing arguments and have a flame war with yourself.

0thgen 4y ago
genius. maybe also publicly agree with yourself to show people it's possible

mhb 4y ago

0. Don't lie to the public. Even though you may think it is helpful in the short run, it is devastating in the long run. All the rest is commentary.

neilv 4y ago
> 0. Don't lie I think this is also good advice for engineering teams, companies, humans.
- londgine 4y ago
  But it's not that damaging if it's not a trust based institution. When Facebook writes next to their ads "recommended for you", I know that's a lie. But it doesn't bother me that much. When government medical leaders say that wearing a mask is worse for you, unless you go through 6 years of medical training to learn how to properly put on a mask, I ignore almost any future advice from them.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > When Facebook writes next to their ads "recommended for you", I know that's a lie. In what sense is it a lie? They are right there recommending it for you.

VictorPath 4y ago

Coronavirus hit New Zealand in 2020, and by May 2nd twenty people had died. New Zealand implemented lockdowns and ordered vaccines, although they took a while to come. By the end of October 2021, 28 people had died of Covid in New Zealand. They had massively attended sporting events at the height of the world pandemic as coronavirus was undetectable in the country. Once pretty much any one who wanted to be vaccinated got vaccinated, they loosened the rules. Whereas in the US you have immediate resistance from these Christian fundamentalists (Hillsdale is Christian fundamentalist). Over one million Americans are dead of Covid, lots of people have long Covid, and anecdotally hospitals were full and all hospital patients saw delays in care, so I am sure people who could not get cancer treatments died due to these nuts.

peteradio 4y ago
> dead of Covid w/covid
- _djo_ 4y ago
  That statement immediately exposes you as a crank. Millions of excess deaths happened, deaths that would not have happened without COVID infections. I had otherwise perfectly healthy friends and family either die or be stuck with long term conditions from it. There’s value in debating the best measures taken to handle the pandemic, there’s none whatsoever in denying it was even a thing.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    No, its important to be accurate about what numbers are representing. OP is misquoting an important statistic and for whatever reason you see fit to back that up with no cited sources and unverifiable anecdotes. My anecdote is that Covid did not kill anyone I know.
    - _djo_ 4y ago
      Nope. There’s nothing new in the way COVID deaths are reported, and in fact making the distinction you’re demanding is what would be the break from standard practice. Death certificates have for decades had contributory causes listed with the main one being the most proximate cause. For instance if someone has severe hypertension and then has a heart attack both are usually listed but the heart attack is the cause of death. I don’t see any need to debunk it further because the claim is patent nonsense and I’m surprised to see anyone still repeating it after all this time.

jdthedisciple 4y ago

Reasonable principles. I think by now most of us know that in the most recent pandemic, the public has been repeatedly deceived if not straightup lied to regarding efficacy and side-effects of the vaccines as well as the origin of the virus, and public individuals shamed and silenced for stating things that half a year later became mainstream news, over and over again.

reureu 4y ago

FYI -- Hillsdale College does not have a public health program and is not an accredited school of public health (SPH). Their document on "Ethical Principles of Public Health" feels more political than oriented around public health. There are people at actual SPHs that work on public health ethics, it might be worth focusing on those instead of amplifying whatever this is.

junofan 4y ago
I don’t think letting a small group of insiders define their own ethics is a good idea.
VictorPath 4y ago
Well let's see which health experts signed it... Roger Severino, vice president of the Heritage Foundation. He's a lawyer with no medical training. I guess his credentials for health is Trump appointed him as an HHS lawyer to undo what Severino called the "radical gender ideology" of Obama.
rgrieselhuber 4y ago
This is a declaration of principles, not an appeal to credentialism.
- reureu 4y ago
  It just seems worthwhile to note that this isn't coming from an organization with any history of working or studying or caring about public health. The public is free to advocate or believe in these principles, just know where they're coming from. It's kind of like how many engineers get upset when non-technical PMs dictate how they should think about or build systems.
joelberman 4y ago
Which ones do you object to? What would you prefer?
- reureu 4y ago