Rothschild reversed: explaining the exceptionalism of biomedical research, 1971-1981.

The 'Rothschild reforms' of the early 1970s established a new framework for the management of government-funded science. The subsequent dismantling of the Rothschild system for biomedical research and the return of funds to the Medical Research Council (MRC) in 1981 were a notable departure from this framework and ran contrary to the direction of national science policy. The exceptionalism of these measures was justified at the time with reference to the 'particular circumstances' of biomedical research. Conventional explanations for the reversal in biomedical research include the alleged greater competence and higher authority of the MRC, together with its claimed practical difficulties. Although they contain some elements of truth, such explanations are not wholly convincing. Alternative explanations hinge on the behaviour of senior medical administrators, who closed ranks to ensure that de facto control was yielded to the MRC. This created an accountability deficit, which the two organizations jointly resolved by dismantling the system for commissioning biomedical research. The nature and working of medical elites were central to this outcome.

State Hygiene School as a Department of Education in the National Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw

The article presents the history of the establishment of the State School of Hygiene (PSH) in Poland after the First World War. The difficulties faced by the public health service in a country destroyed by war and created after the reunification of the lands, which for over 150 years remained under the control of three powers, were pointed out. It discusses how the foundations of modern teaching in the field of public health were created in the National Institute of Hygiene (PZH) in Warsaw, an institution to which the Ministry of Public Health entrusted tasks related to health education in the country. The State School of Hygiene was built by the Polish Government with a significant financial contribution from the John Davison Rockefeller Foundation. The official opening ceremony took place on 20 April 1926. The State School of Hygiene in Warsaw was the first such school in Europe. It educated professional staff for the health service in Poland, especially sanitary physicians, sanitary inspectors, nurses and staff to work in health offices. The importance and scope of influence of the State School of Hygiene as the Department of Education in the National Institute of Hygiene was constantly increasing, as evidenced by the number of students (about 800 per year) participating in courses, especially in the first years after its establishment. By the end of 1935, 6,389 students had completed the courses, including 1,900 physicians. Apart from the teaching activities, the State School of Hygiene also carried out research work. The State School of Hygiene was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded scholarships for the employees of the National Institute of Hygiene at university centers in the USA

Development of food and nutrition sciences in the 100-year history of the National Institute of Hygiene in Poland

Issues related to nutrition and food safety in Poland are included in the hundred-year history of the National Institute of Hygiene (PZH), which exists since 1918. The first scientific institution in Poland devoted to nutrition after the First World War was the Department of Biochemistry and Hygiene of Nutrition created in 1923 in the National School of Hygiene operating at the National Institute of Hygiene (PZH), whose director was Dr. Ludwik Rajchman. This Department was headed since 1925 by Kazimierz Funk, an outstanding scholar, who had already gained international fame as a discoverer of vitamins, and at PZH he investigated the effects of poor nutrition on health. After departure of Kazimierz Funk from Poland, the issues related to nutrition were dealt with by Dr. Gustaw Szulc and Dr. Aleksander Szczygiel, who since 1938 was the head of the Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition Hygiene. In 1963, all issues related to nutrition were transferred from the National Institute of Hygiene (PZH) to the newly founded Institute of Food and Nutrition in Warsaw, whose director was Aleksander Szczygiel. Food safety issues went to the National Institute of Hygiene in 1935 after incorporating into its structure the State Department of Food and Consumers Goods operating in Warsaw since 1919. Thanks to this reorganization, National Institute of Hygiene became the headquarter for all State Departments of Food and Consumer Goods in Poland. As soon as in the third year of their activity (in 1921), the laboratories of the State Department of Food and Consumers Goods examined over 65,000 samples of food products, detecting adulterations, false labeling, harmful admixtures or spoiled products in 44% of cases. The State Departments of Food and Consumer Goods in 1952 were transformed into Sanitary-Epidemiological Stations and incorporated into the structures of the State Sanitary Inspection. National Institute of Hygiene obtained the status of a research institute whose tasks were besides the scientific activity, the postgraduate education of the personnel of this Inspection. After the Second World War, prof. Stanislaw Krauze, who was appointed the head of the Department of Food Research and Articles of Common Use at the PZH in 1935, continued his mission. Prof. Stanislaw Krauze was recognized as the founder of the scientific bases of food control in Poland, food sciences and the initiator of microbiological food research. Prof. Stanislaw Krauze was the head of this Department of PZH until 1962. Another head of this Department, prof. dr h.c. Maksym Nikonorow, introduced research on pesticide residues, food monitoring studies, as well as toxicological testing using laboratory animals, opening a new quality in the assessment of food safety. After his retirement this Department was led by prof. Halina Mazur (1981-1990) and assoc. prof. Kazimierz Karlowski (1990-2010). Since 2011 dr Jacek Postupolski is a head of this Department, which in 2012 has changed its name to the Department of Food Safety. The scientific staff of this Department, besides conducting scientific research, service, and educational activities, acts as experts for the Minister of Health, the Minister of Agriculture, and other national authorities, and cooperates with the FAO/WHO, the European Commission and Food and Feed Safety Authority (EFSA). In the Department there are accredited laboratories serving as the National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) which cooperate with the European Union Reference Laboratories (EU-RLs).

Department of Sera and Vaccines Production in the National Institute of Hygiene 1919-1951 / Zaklad Produkcji Surowic i Szczepionek Panstwowego Zakladu Higieny w latach 1919-1951

The statute of the National Institute of Hygiene from 1923 apart from research and diagnosing of infectious diseases, their sources, ways of spreading and fighting defined: "production and research of sera, vaccines, cowpox and other bacterial products". These targets were realized since 1919 along as the technology of production developed and the demand in prevention and fighting of infectious diseases increased. Sera and bacterial strains were investigated in Department of Bacteriology and Experimental Medicine in NIH and controlled Department of Sera and Vaccines. The technology of production was coordinated with foreign scientific centers and commissions of League of Nations. Since 1925 Department produced 10 species of medical sera and 32 species of various vaccines. Production was relocated to Warsaw Manufacture of Sera and Vaccines in the year 1951.

[The history of collaboration between the Bureau of Forensic Medical Expertise of the Moscow Health Department and the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Sechenovsky University]. / Istoriia vzaimodeistviia Biuro sudebno-meditsinskoi ékspertizy Departamenta zdravookhraneniia Moskvy i kafedry sudebnoi meditsiny Sechenovskogo universiteta.

This article presents the materials devoted to the long-term history of collaboration between the Bureau of Forensic Medical Expertise of the Moscow Health Department and the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Sechenovsky University. Special attention is given to the contribution made by the Department of Forensic Medicine to the scientific and practical activities, methodological and staffing support first of the Moscow forensic medical services and thereafter of the Bureau of Forensic Medical Expertise operating under the auspices of the Moscow Health Department. Simultaneously, the influence of the work of the Moscow Bureau of Forensic Medical Expertise on the development and improvement of the scientific, methodological, and pedagogical activities of the Russia's oldest Department of Forensic Medicine is overviewed. The personal contribution of the most prominent forensic medical experts and physicians of Moscow to medical science and practice is illustrated by concrete examples.

Crisis and Change: The Making of a French FDA.

Policy Points: Introducing a recent special issue of The Lancet on the health system in France, Horton and Ceschia observe that "the dominance of English as the language of science and, increasingly, global health too often closes the door on the history and experiences of others."1 In that spirit, this manuscript presents a detailed case study of public health policy transformation in France in the early 1990s. It casts light on processes of policy change in a political and cultural environment very different from that of the United States, showing how the public health policy process is shaped by multiple contingencies of history, ideology, and politics. More specifically, we describe the transformation of a disease catastrophe into a political crisis and the deployment of that crisis to precipitate reform of the French public health system. CONTEXT: Until the last decade of the 20th century, France had no equivalent to the US Food and Drug Administration. In this paper we describe and interpret the complex series of events that led to the passage by the French Parliament in December 1992 of a law incorporating such an agency, the Agence du Médicament (literally, "medicines agency"). The broad aim of this project was to learn how public health policy change comes about by detailed analysis of a specific instance. More specifically, we aimed to better understand the circumstances under which public health crisis leads to significant public health policy reform. METHODS: This paper is based on detailed analysis of primary documents (eg, archived French health ministry papers, recorded parliamentary debates, government reports, newspaper articles) and oral history interviews covering a period from 1988 to 1993. Thematic analysis of these materials was initially grounded in theories of organizational change, moving to constructs that emerged from the data themselves. FINDINGS: Policy entrepreneurs positioned to frame adverse events and seize opportunities are key to public health policy reform. However, whether these entrepreneurs will have the requisite institutional power is contingent both on political structure and on the power of competing institutional actors. Health crises may catalyze institutional reform, but our analysis suggests that whether reform occurs, or even whether adverse episodes are labeled as crises, is highly contingent on circumstances of history, political structure, and political ideology and is extremely difficult to predict or control. CONCLUSIONS: Actors positioned to shape public health policy need to have a detailed understanding of the circumstances that facilitate or impede policy reform. Health crises are now more often global than not. Comparative, theoretically grounded, cross-national research that looks in detail at how different countries respond to similar health crises would be extremely valuable in informing both policymakers and researchers.

[The activities of the Medical council of the Ministry of internal affairs related to medicinal support of population (XIX-early XX centuries)].

The article considers activity of the Medical council of the Ministry of inner affairs in the field of medicinal support. This kind of activity was targeted to stimulating development of pharmacy network, regulation of issues of import of trade of medicines, pricing, standardization of methods of manufacturing and quality control of of medicines, regulation of medical advertisement, etc.

Acid Brothers: Henry Beecher, Timothy Leary, and the psychedelic of the century.

Henry Knowles Beecher, an icon of human research ethics, and Timothy Francis Leary, a guru of the counterculture, are bound together in history by the synthetic hallucinogen lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Both were associated with Harvard University during a critical period in their careers and of drastic social change. To all appearances the first was a paragon of the establishment and a constructive if complex hero, the second a rebel and a criminal, a rogue and a scoundrel. Although there is no evidence they ever met, Beecher's indirect struggle with Leary over control of the 20th century's most celebrated psychedelic was at the very heart of his views about the legitimate, responsible investigator. That struggle also proves to be a revealing bellwether of the increasingly formalized scrutiny of human experiments that was then taking shape.

[Health Education for Men by the Federal Centre of Health Education: A Contribution to the Presentation of Men as unaware of Health? (1970-1990)]. / Männerspezifische GesundheitsaufkIärung durch die BZgA: Ein Beitrag zur Verfestigung des Gesundheitsdefizitdiskurses? (1970-1990).

This article offers a close consideration about the gender-specific contents of health education campaigns in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1970 to 1990. By using educational publications issued by the Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA), it is shown which breaks and continuities emerged and which kinds of role models are thereby conveyed. Whereas the health education of the 1950s and 1960s was characterised by a didactical approach towards men and women, this changed as from the 1970s. By deconstructing exemplary education campaigns and including internal files of the BZgA, it can be shown, that the societal discourse on the feminism in the FRG contributed to the fact, that during the 1970s the switch has been made to an increased use of positive role models. However, within the men-specific health education there was no break; the health deficiency discourse was still applied in many and diverse ways in order to describe male health behaviour and knowledge.

[Health-care services in the GDR during the 1980s: A status report based on the files of the state security agency]. / Das DDR-Gesundheitswesen in den 1980er Jahren: Ein Zustandsbild anhand von Akten der Staatssicherheit.

BACKGROUND: The situation of the health-care services in the GDR during the 1980s has been reconstructed on the basis of the in part not previously released files of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi files). METHOD: A research application was submitted to the responsible German Agency to examine the Stasi files on district physicians in the GDR. 78 extensive files were made available and evaluated according to the topics drugs and other medicinal aids, medical techniques, building status, procurement of foreign currencies, hygiene, Chernobyl, appeals and shortage of physicians. RESULTS: The Stasi files reveal a dismal picture for the status of health-care services in the GDR during the 1980s. The authorities responsible for public health and the Ministry for State Security were well informed about the existing problems. Towards the end of the GDR the Ministry of Sate Security admitted internally that research and technology were lagging about 10 years behind that in Western countries. CONCLUSION: The discrepancy between the official reports and inofficial opinions was considerable. The Ministry of State Security worked mainly passively in an ideological fantasy world in which all such discrepencies had to be denied.

[Major milestones for European pharmaceutical policy]. / Les grandes étapes de l'Europe du medicament.

Under the 1985 White Paper on the completion of the single market, several pharmaceutical harmonisation measures were unanimously adopted, in favor of biotech products and on pricing transparency, legal status of prescription, wholesale distribution and advertising. The European pharmaceutical harmonisation was extended to Norway and Iceland, to new accession member states and through major international conferences with the US and Japan (ICH). Starting in 1995, the European medicines agency has produced an efficient marketing authorisation system for new human and veterinary medicines. The system was extended to pediatric medicines and advanced therapies. The monitoring of drug adverse effects (pharmacovigilance) has been gradually strengthened.

["Podmoskovie"--health resort institution of the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation celebrates the 20th anniversary].

The article is dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Federal government health resort institution of the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation (FGI "Health resort "Podmoskovie" of the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation). In this health resort were developed treatment programs for patients with abnormalities of the cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive systems; methods of ultrasonic, laser and magnetic therapy, atmospheric hypoxic, herbal medicine, speleotherapy are employed. Widely used natural healing factors of Ruza district of the Moscow region such as climate therapy, treatment with mineral water group of X type of Smolensk from own wells and balneo-mudtherapy. Over the past 20 years 70 000 patients received an appropriate treatment in this health resort.

[70th anniversary of 111th Main Federal Center of medical and forensic examination of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation].

The article is devoted to 70th anniversary of the head state forensic expert institution of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation--111th Main state center of medicolegal and criminalistic examination of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Some information about historical aspects of functioning of the institution and its activity at the present stage and in conditions of the reform of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is given.