‘Perverse’ and ‘Morally Reprehensible’: Public Health Officials Must Be More Ethical, Thought Leaders Say

By Aleksandr Ozerov/Shutterstock

The role of public health officials is to ensure the health and safety of the public. When large numbers of people are not healthy, public health has failed.

The Hillsdale Initiative

On Aug. 23, 2022, the newly established “Academy for Science and Freedom” at the Hillsdale College published a statement on the ethical principles of public health.

The 13 co-authors explained that “during the SARS2 coronavirus pandemic, fundamental principles of public health were ignored, and trust in public health has been damaged. As experts in public health, medical science, ethics, and health policy, we propose the following ten principles to guide public health officials and scientists, in order to ensure the credibility of public health recommendations and to help restore public trust.”

A Brief History of Public Health

Ancient Romans were the first people we know of to recognize the importance of sanitation for public health. Even before the first century B.C., the Romans had sanitary sewers that took human waste water through underground pipes out to marshes outside town. These marshes then acted as bioswales to process the human waste.