Foege likened the combination of science and ethics to a chemical composition, saying that "this discussion is a compound, not a mixture, of the two." Foege's Nov. 9 speech, titled "Leading the War on Communicable Diseases: Making the World Safe for Children," was the first in the Ethics Center's "People Making A Difference" series. Foege focused on four points: the place of science today, what science has to offer, what can be done for the world using science, and opportunities in public health.
Director of the The Carter Center's Task Force on Child Survival and Development, Foege called the 1990s "the age of science" and North America the "epicenter of the science age, where scientific discoveries are almost a daily occurrence." Despite these advancements, Foege said we are "often bewildered" because science has offered knowledge that people don't know how to use.
Citing the example of increased life expectancy, Foege said, "It's too easy to say that life expectancies are up ... but if you personalize life expectancies for the average American on the average day, it works out to about seven hours a day. For the first time in history, science cancels out the need to sleep." But "science has more than years to offer you--it has the ability to offer quality as well." He called "the most dramatic gift a third-dimension function of life expectancy," saying that the students present would write more in a year than Shakespeare did in a lifetime, people now have the ability to travel further than Marco Polo did in a lifetime, and during four years at Emory, through its resources, students would have more exposure to knowledge than Aristotle did in a lifetime.
Foege detailed a number of scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that have made dramatic impacts on the quality of human life, including Jonas Salk's polio vaccine in the 1950s. He also pointed out that until Galileo, "there was no great argument between science and religion--but when Galileo published his findings and dedicated them to the pope, people were split between science and religion."
Finally, Foege discussed what the study of public health could mean for its students and the general population. "I've watched as Atlanta has become public health's global hub; it's rapidly become the public health capital of the world. I've watched as public health has defined in clear terms what its mission is." And, he said, "public health uses the truth for evidence of scientific social justice."
Present examples of public health in action, Foege said, include The Carter Center's work with guinea worm disease, which once affected more than 3.5 million people in Africa and the Middle East. Since President Carter has raised money to combat the disease, the number of cases has dropped to 80,000 a year. "Next year, countries will see the last case of guinea worm," said Foege. "We will certainly see the disease disappear in this decade." He also said that there have been no reported cases of polio in the western hemisphere for four years (all cases of measles on this continent are now due to importation), and nutrition in Africa has improved due to the development of a new strain of corn.
Foege concluded his lecture with an overview of the progress of public health. "In 1978, we had our first meeting in White Hall. The next day, we had a meeting at the CDC and outlined 220 reasonable objectives for public health by 1990 ... we reached half of those goals in 1990, a quarter couldn't be determined, and another quarter were not reached," he said. "We weren't very good, but it didn't matter ... a process had been started. There is a system for public health that started on this campus." However, he said, "in the midst of celebration, there is a reality--the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing. The increasing gap poses real public health problems."
Foege said that public health is moving from a service profession to a money-oriented profession, which emphasizes the need to see science and ethics as a compound, not a mixture. "I stand on behalf of the thousands of people in this city making a difference with science," said Foege. "We will need to ask why. We need science to further civilization. Science unhooked from wisdom, ethics and art is dangerous. Ask why and how you are using it. In public health, errors of omission are more dangerous because you never face the people it affects ... this University will challenge you to ask why. Don't be immobilized by past mistakes; move to the future."
-- Danielle Service