© 2007 American Public Health Association DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.121418
Peter Piot and Sarah Russell are with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS, Geneva, Switzerland. Heidi Larson is with the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Boston, Mass, and the Department of International Development, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Sarah Russell, UNAIDS, 20 Avenue Appia, CH1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland (e-mail: russells@unaids.org).
Historically, many of the improvements in public health have their roots in a synergistic combination of political leadership and science. The potency of this synergy between politics and science is illustrated by many of the public health advances made in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Improvements in European childrens health, for example, occurred when politicians responded to calls from their electorates to end child labor. Similarly, declines in tuberculosis started before treatment was even available, because of social activism that resulted in improved living conditions.1 Incidences of tobacco-related illnesses were finally reduced when doctors and the antismoking lobby prevailed
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