Bucking the health establishment: Alexander Milne and the fight for a New Zealand hepatitis B immunization program

William Muraskin

Social Science & Medicine, 1995, vol. 41, issue 2, 211-225

Abstract: In order to successfully combat a disease it is necessary that their exists an individual or a group willing to 'champion' that ailment by arguing that it is serious enough to warrant the expenditure of scarce resources. In the case of hepatitis B such champions have often arisen outside of the public health establishments that are mandated to play that role. In New Zealand it was left up to one unusual and determined man to not only discover the seriousness of the hepatitis B epidemic but to practically single-handedly force a reluctant government to acknowledge the threat and act to contain it. He accomplished this by combining high quality scientific research with unrelenting political pressure generated by appeals to the public by means of the mass media. Alexander Milne demonstrates the vital role that the concerned citizen can make even in an age of timid bureaucracies.

Keywords: hepatitis; B; New; Zealand; health; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1995
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(95)00066-G
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:41:y:1995:i:2:p:211-225

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().