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The Ethical Principles of Public Health

dc.hillsdale.edu

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Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#31

Post by peter_d_sherman »

specialist wrote: post #19
user982 wrote: post #7

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…

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/Hillsdale_College#Academy_for_... Salon's Matthew Rozsa's recap of that debacle: 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 repr…

Hey, I got an idea!

You know, we could attack The Declaration Of Independence -- because we don't like any of its writers -- Thomas Jefferson? He owned slaves! John Adams? He was affiliated with that seditious Washington guy! Benjamin Franklin? He wore a stupid hat!

We could attack The Constitution in the same way!

Steps:

1) Choose a random writer or signatory.

2) Find the one unvirtuous act (in a whole lifetime of more-or-less virtuous acts!) -- that the public is most aware of.

3) Use that act to frame that historical writer or signatory -- in the most unvirtuous light possible.

4) Now, because the writer or signatory is framed in this way, that creates (by implication) -- the idea that the document is "bad" in some way -- when in fact it is not!

In fact, we can do the same thing to all the great historic documents of all time -- for that matter!

The Constitution Of The United Kingdom, The Magna Carta, The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights -- the list goes on and on!

Just attack one or more authors -- and you're attacking the document!

Harry Potter? Harry Potter sucks because J.K. Rowling did some small unvirtuous act in her youth, and that makes the book bad!

Star Wars? Star Wars sucks because I heard that George Lucas stole a piece of candy when he was 12!

Your Math Teacher told you that 2+2=4? Well, that's wrong because that Math Teacher is a bad person because of some small unvirtuous act they may have committed (it's alleged, not proven!) -- 50 or 60 years ago! (I think it involved not thanking a student for an apple, or something like that, at least that's the way it was reported to me by a newspaper who reported it from TV news article who reported it from another newspaper who reported it from a guy who claimed it to be true while buying some donuts in midtown Manhattan...)

It reminds me of that quote from Billy Madison...

(You know, the one that begins with "Congratulations Mr. Madison"... and ends with... "Everyone in the room is now dumber..." )

Anyway, interested parties may wish to read the following:

Alain de Botton: The News – a User’s Manual

https://www.alisonmorgan.co.uk/Books/De%20Botton%202014.pdf

Although -- maybe it is true that Benjamin Franklin did wear a funny hat?

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#32

Post by Consultant32452 »

harimau777 wrote: post #4

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 lik…

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.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#33

Post by junofan »

reureu wrote: post #26

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.

I don’t think letting a small group of insiders define their own ethics is a good idea.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#34

Post by _djo_ »

peteradio wrote: post #21
VictorPath wrote: post #13

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…

> dead of Covid w/covid

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.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#35

Post by rgrieselhuber »

reureu wrote: post #26

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.

This is a declaration of principles, not an appeal to credentialism.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#36

Post by joelberman »

reureu wrote: post #26

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.

Which ones do you object to? What would you prefer?

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#37

Post by peteradio »

_djo_ wrote: post #34
peteradio wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dead of Covid w/covid

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.

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.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#38

Post by _djo_ »

peteradio wrote: post #37
_djo_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#39

Post by peteradio »

_djo_ wrote: post #38
peteradio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

It should then be easy for you to cite a source for "Over one million Americans are dead of Covid"

Re: The Ethical Principles of Public Health

#40

Post by krisoft »

londgine wrote: post #30
neilv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 0. Don't lie I think this is also good advice for engineering teams, companies, humans.

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.

> 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.

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