Deadly Sins and Living Virtues of Public Health

Deadly Sins and Living Virtues of Public Health
President and Staff of United States Institute of Medicine    Full document here

Harvey V. Fineberg, Jennifer Cohen, Patricia Cuff, Rick Erdtmann, Patrick Kelley, Janice Mehler, Livia Navon, Laura Pillsbury, Stephanie Pincus, Sheri Sable, Patti Simon, Isabelle Von Kohorn, and Sarah Ziegenhorn

At a recent meeting for Institute of Medicine (IOM) staff, I delivered a version of my 2011 Frank A. Calderone Prize  Lecture, which included reference to the seven deadly sins. As originally enunciated by Pope Gregory I in 590 A.D., the deadly sins  are lust, sloth, gluttony, greed, wrath, envy, and pride. I used these as a foil to suggest there are also seven deadly sins of public health. Retaining three of the original sins (sloth, greed, and gluttony), I added four more: ignorance, complacency, timidity, and obstinacy. Sloth blocks us from doing the daily activity that would help keep us healthy. Gluttony cajoles us to eat even if we are no longer hungry and has, along with sloth, produced an obesity epidemic. Greed drives companies to continue to market and profit from items that are bad for health, such as cigarettes.

To these I added three sins of omission—ignorance, sometimes willful, colors judgment and leads to poor health decisions by both individuals and policy makers;  complacency is responsible for the acceptance as “normal” of health hazards that are, in fact, preventable or avoidable; and  timidity prevents individuals from demanding health-enhancing changes to policy and practice and inhibits policy makers from doing the right thing. For the seventh deadly sin, I suggested obstinacy—the refusal to accept evidence on best practices and the refusal to change practices or customs that are familiar. I then invited staff to propose additional candidates for a deadly sin of public health and submit them to Clyde Behney, deputy executive officer of the IOM. Clyde then compiled the results, and we thought it would be worthwhile to make them more widely available through a discussion paper.

Harvey V. Fineberg
President, IOM

Oxford lecture by DG of WTO, Pascal Lamy 8 March 2012

Webcast and podcast likely to be made if you cannot attend in person.  Check on their site.
Jump here to more information

Distinguished Public Lecture: 

Pascal Lamy, "Global governance, local governments"

08 March 2012 17:00 - 18:30    Oxford University

The Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, will explore innovative ideas to reconcile the tensions between global governance and local governments in this Distinguished Public Lecture on Thursday 8 March 2012.

Globalization has created a more interconnected, interdependent and complex world than ever witnessed before.

Whilst this openness and connectivity has brought enormous benefits, it has also increased our vulnerability and exposure to global shocks, such as the recent financial crisis. Balancing these dimensions brings significant challenges at the global, regional and local levels. As we face some of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, how equipped are global governance structures to coordinate and address issues such as climate change, trade tensions, food security and economic uncertainty? How do we resolve the inevitable strains that exist between global and national priorities in such debates?

In this distinguished lecture, Mr Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, offers his perspectives on these critical issues from his distinguished career as a French political adviser, a businessman and as former European Commissioner for Trade.

Mr Lamy will be introduced by the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes.

Health ethics visiting fellowship, Oxford Ethox Centre

Caroline Miles Visiting Scholarship

 The Caroline Miles Visiting Scholarship is funded by the Ethox Foundation and is awarded annually to a post-doctoral or early career researcher to visit the Ethox Centre. The value of the scholarship is up to £2000, and is intended to assist scholars with travel and living costs during their visit. Visiting Scholars will spend up to a month working at the Ethox Centre in Oxford, pursuing a research project on a topic relating to one of the Ethox Centre’s three main research programmes: global health ethics; clinical ethics; research ethics. They will benefit from the supervision and feedback of the Ethox research staff and will have access to the libraries and research facilities of the University of Oxford. They will also have the opportunity to attend talks and lectures which are relevant to their interests. Scholars will be expected to make a presentation on their research toward the end of their stay.

The deadline for applications will be in April each year. The deadline for the academic year 2012-13 is: 2^nd April 2012. Applicants are asked to state the proposed dates of their visit and to submit a CV, with the names of two referees and a 500-word statement summarising their research interests and what they hope to achieve during their visit. The application should be submitted via email to the following address: admin@ethox.ox.ac.uk. All applications will be acknowledged on receipt. If you do not receive an acknowledgment please try to contact us again. Please note that applications sent after the closing date will not be acknowledged or considered.

The Ethox Centre is a multidisciplinary bioethics research centre in the University of Oxford’s Department of Public Health. It aims to improve ethical standards in healthcare practice and in medical research through education, research, and the provision of ethics support to health professionals and medical researchers. The Ethox Centre aims in all its activities to be close to practice and seeks to engage with ethical issues faced by real world actors in real world settings. An implication of this is that the Centre places particular value on approaches to research bringing together empirical social science research and ethical analysis. The Centre’s research activities focus on three areas: global health ethics; clinical ethics; and research ethics. For more information about the Ethox Centre, go to: www.ethox.org.uk

The Caroline Miles Visiting Scholarship Scheme is Directed by Dr Angeliki Kerasidou (angeliki.kerasidou@dph.ox.ac.uk)

Jump to the website here  jump

LSE Conference. 25 years of health research / towards global health policy')

Towards a global health policy? Celebrating 25 years of health policy research and teaching at the LSE 19-20 March 2012, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK 


Link Here jump here

LSE is holding a special conference to celebrate its five health MSc programmes. The conference will bring together alumni, policymakers, practitioners, students and academics to debate key global health policy issues.

Themes include:

Global health, global justice?
Does 'high-performing health system' mean the same thing everywhere?
The global health workforce: how can we get it right?
Access to drugs: the number one policy issue?
Protecting health in difficult circumstances: politics, economics and health
Why attend?

Find out about current debates and research on major health policy issues
Meet up with former and current LSE students and staff
Network, share your experiences, make new links
What next?

LSE's director, Professor Judith Rees, will open the conference on the evening of 19th March, followed by a keynote speaker and reception. After a day of plenary sessions involving leading international speakers on 20th March, the conference will close with a drinks reception.

Register for this event|

Draft programme|

LSE Health and Social Care gratefully acknowledges financial support from the LSE Annual Fund, on-line journal Globalization and Health, LSE Health, Dr Adam Oliver and Dr Panos Kanavos. If you are interested in sponsoring this event, please contact Dr Sarah Thomson|.

Michael Sandel LSE BBC 3 lectures March 8 & 9

Go to LSE Page with full info here.  HERE

The Public Philosopher - Lecture 1  

Page contents > Ticket Information | Podcasts | Twitter and Facebook | CPD | Accessibility

LSE and BBC Radio 4 public event

Date: Thursday 8 March 2012
Time: 5.45-7pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Professor Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel is a professor of political philosophy at Harvard and one of the
university's most popular lecturers. In a series of of public events, recorded at the
London School of Economics and Political Science, he will challenge his audience to apply critical thinking to the sort of ethical dilemmas most people rely on gut instinct to resolve.

Michael Sandel's lectures to Harvard undergraduates are so popular that students
have to be turned away. The lectures are challenging and interactive.  Audience members are asked to raise their hands in response to a series of questions about their attitudes to a political issue of the day. The brave ones will volunteer to explain the thinking behind their views.  So begins an hour in which political controversies are examined with regard to the underlying philosophical issues.

An antidote to the "yah-boo" debate of party politics, Sandel's lectures will be profound as well as entertaining.

The three lectures will take place on 5.45pm and 7.45pm on Thursday March 8 and at 6.30pm on Friday March 9. Each event is ticketed, so you need to submit a ticket request for each of the lectures.

Topics will be decided close to recording, but each of the three lectures will examine a different issue.

The lectures will be broadcast as The Public Philosopher on BBC Radio 4 at 9am on Tuesday 3, 10 and 17 April 2012.

Michael Sandel is Professor of Government and lecturer in political philosophy at
Harvard. As the BBC's Reith lecturer in 2009, he explored the topics of moral and
civic renewal in democratic politics; genetics and morality; the role of morality in
politics; and the moral limits of markets. In January 2011 he hosted a discussion for
BBC Four at the Royal Institution on fairness in public policy and the Big Society. His
latest book, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, will be published in
April 2012.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #lseSandel