Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
one issue that demands further attention is that of animal-human health—
having vertical silos of knowledge, when there are horizontal problems, is worthy
of concern. If 80 percent of new and emerging diseases come from the furry and
feathery clients of the veterinarians, there needs to be a direct line of communication
between public health officials and animal health workers because public health
institutions must know up front what will be the future threat. In this regard, canada
has taken the lead by linking the canadian Food Inspection agency and the national
Microbiology laboratory in winnipeg. this is tied to another problem, however, in
regard to horizontal issues: if organisations such as the wHo only deal with health
ministers, how can a whole-of-government response be possible?
a second issue, related to data, again deals with a similar fault in representation
and communication. If only health ministers are represented at the wHo and not
the governmental departments of statistics, how can the two groups collaborate
effectively to produce more trusted data? Moreover, the wHo's disability-adjusted
life year (DalY) and all those things that were not tried are not trusted anymore.
what can be done with countries where even births and deaths are not recorded?
How can the numerator be dealt with when the denominator is unknown?
For example, a canadian parliamentary sub-committee on people with disabilities
was obliged to work with almost ten-year-old census data, which made it difficult to
plan. Yet that is the norm in many countries. How can technology, such as the internet,
be used to ensure that knowledge is translated for public access in real time and is
rapidly disseminated, widely accessible, and scientifically reviewed? How does one
ensure that citizens are initiating healthy public policy because they have received
good information on the real science in a sensible way? It is sometimes much easier
for citizens to pull out what is healthy public policy than it is for governments to
be pushing it. People need to know how important it is to wash their hands, for
example, but that information can also help change the behaviour of their healthcare
providers. Once the technology issue has been resolved, publicly influenced policy
making can be a very healthy step forward.
Unfortunately, on top of these issues about dissemination, there are
further complications with regard to research ethics. a good example is the ethical
complications of working with the 1918 influenza virus, when there was no
international oversight or control of the dreaded microbe. Should this work have
been allowed to proceed without international approval and oversight? If not, who
should have provided it? what kind of permission would be required to proceed on
that kind of research?
More generally, what must be done to make sure there is a normative function
for a multilateral organisation, like the wHo? How should that normative function
be created to ensure that the organisation sets global norms and standards and is a
container of global information while at the same time relies on sound science? How
should political interests be managed so that, for example, a nutrition resolution is
not pushed through by the sugar-producing countries, or a life-saving measure
is rejected because of a country's religious beliefs about reproductive health?
