National decisions on the drugs, treatments and medical devices that should be funded through public expenditure are a fundamental element of health policy. But despite a political emphasis upon evidence-based policy, the results of rigorous clinical trials and statistical modelling techniques rarely speak for themselves. So, does the pre-eminence traditionally accorded to quantitative data in ...

Somatostatin is a tetradecapeptide with potent inhibitory actions on several endocrine systems; it blocks the release of growth hormone, follicle stimulating hormone and thyrotropin from the pituitary gland (Krulich et al., 1968; Brazeau et al., 1973; Hall et al., 1978; Reichlin, 1983) and several peptide hormones from the endocrine gut and pancreas (Cohen et al., 1978; Gerich, 1981). It also a...

Introduction Let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. Within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the West’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. Comparing the US with mainland Europe and indeed Canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and in...

Reform of the health care system is a complex process. Opinions vary as to the need for reform and the specific policy changes to be implemented. The Clinton administration has presented a proposal for health care policy reform, but alternative proposals have been recommended. A review of the legislative process indicates the many opportunities to amend or "kill" proposed health reform legislat...

Gorik Ooms recently made a strong case for considering the centrality of normative premises to analyzing and understanding the underappreciated importance of the nexus of politics, power and process in global health. This critical commentary raises serious questions for the practice and study of global health and global health governance. First and foremost, this commentary underlines the impor...

introduction of satisfactory artificial feeding, such sustenance was also a vital factor in the lives of orphans and foundlings, for whom the alternative was direct feeding from such animals as goats. That the subject can sustain an entire book may seem surprising; however, recognizing its potential during research for her earlier work, Breasts, bottles and babies, Valerie Fildes has produced a...

This executive summary of Judith Miller Jones' remarks was prepared by Julie Snyder of the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs. The remarks were given in the context of a panel presentation moderated by Jones, entitled "Politics of Health Policy: Yesterday and Today."

Thomas McKeown was a rhetorically powerful critic, from the inside, of the medical profession's mid-20th-century love affair with curative and scientific medicine. He emphasized instead the importance of economic growth, rising living standards, and improved nutrition as the primary sources of most historical improvements in the health of developed nations. This interpretation failed to emphasi...

This paper follows the social and political history of OZE, the Society for the Preservation of the Health of the Jewish Population, in the interwar period. We focus on two campaigns against typhus and favus, the first two disease oriented efforts by OZE, in order to reconstruct the operational approaches, considerations and obstacles faced by OZE as a Jewish organization and transnational part...