Public health remains vital

The AMA is a catalyst to bring together the worlds of public health and clinical medicine.

Editorial. April 16, 2001.

When the AMA was founded more than 150 years ago, one of its first acts was to create a Committee on Practical Medicine, which was to report annually on "the progress of epidemics." Throughout the AMA's first century, infectious disease was one of the major threats to Americans' health.

For much of that time, medical specialization was unknown or limited, so it was not unusual for physicians of a community or region to band together against a common foe.

Advances in immunization and the development of antibiotics changed that. Public health became a specialty in its own right. Many of the issues with which it traditionally dealt -- immunizations, sanitation, disease prevention -- pretty much dropped off the radar of most physicians.

Now, it seems a reversal is taking place. The onset of the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s fostered a wider realization that communicable diseases are not obsolete as a major public health problem. The awareness has been heightened significantly by the medical implications of the global community in which we now reside, one in which highly contagious diseases can be carried thousands of miles in a few hours.

In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman wrote: "I feel about globalization a lot like I feel about the dawn. Generally speaking, I think it is a good thing that the sun comes up every morning. It does more good than harm. But even if I didn't care much for the dawn, there isn't much I could do about it. I didn't start globalization and I can't stop it." [...]