WASHINGTON, DC - The spread of Hong Kong Flu is further evidence that world public health authorities have not prioritized public health needs.
Scarce public health resources must be practically allocated to the most pressing public health problems, according to The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC).
Scientists from around the world are discussing the disease in the same breath as the 1918-19 "Spanish Flu" which killed as many as 40 million people worldwide and the 1957 "Asian Flu" which killed as many as 100,000 in the U.S. alone.
Pneumonia and influenza kill twice as many people as AIDS in the U.S. But funding for AIDS research is 25 times greater than funding for pneumonia and influenza research. Without diminishing the significance of AIDS, TASSC said that government funding for public health should be commensurate with the scope of public health needs.
"More shocking still is the government's inability to even identify and rank public health needs," says Steven Milloy, executive director of TASSC. "The outdoor air quality rules recently issued by the Clinton Administration at a cost of more than $50 billion annually are the most expensive environmental regulations ever.
"Yet the Supreme Court ruled just this week that scientific evidence like that used to support the new air quality rules is not reliable enough even to be admitted as evidence in a court of law."
"Our public health priorities are severely skewed by politics, and are not based on actual public health needs as determined by sound science." said Milloy.
TASSC is a not-for-profit organization of scientists, former public policy officials and private citizens interested in the use of sound science in public policy. TASSC is located at 1155 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20036.
Copyright © 1997 Steven J. Milloy. All rights reserved. Site developed and hosted by WestLake Solutions, Inc.