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

[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.

Health Planning in 1960s Africa: International Health Organisations and the Post-Colonial State.

This article explores the programme of national health planning carried out in the 1960s in West and Central Africa by the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Health plans were intended as integral aspects of economic development planning in five newly independent countries: Gabon, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone. We begin by showing that this episode is treated only superficially in the existing WHO historiography, then introduce some relevant critical literature on the history of development planning. Next we outline the context for health planning, noting: the opportunities which independence from colonial control offered to international development agencies; the WHO's limited capacity in Africa; and its preliminary efforts to avoid imposing Western values or partisan views of health system organisation. Our analysis of the plans themselves suggests they lacked the necessary administrative and statistical capacity properly to gauge local needs, while the absence of significant financial resources meant that they proposed little more than augmentation of existing structures. By the late 1960s optimism gave way to disappointment as it became apparent that implementation had been minimal. We describe the ensuing conflict within WHO over programme evaluation and ongoing expenditure, which exposed differences of opinion between African and American officials over approaches to international health aid. We conclude with a discussion of how the plans set in train longer processes of development planning, and, perhaps less desirably, gave bureaucratic shape to the post-colonial state.

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.

Advances in Occupational Health in Guatemala.

Occupational health in Guatemala has come a long way. In 1958, the first Regulation of Occupational Health by the Guatemalan Social Security Institute was published. There wasn´t another Directive in the country regarding this issue until the year 2000, when the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health was created. In 2014, it published the Governmental Agreement 229-2014 Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, which came into force on September 8th, 2015. Nowadays there are other institutions that care about this topic. Some of these institutions promote occupational health training through courses, workshops, seminars, etc., but there is not a formal education program yet. There are some other institutions, such as the National Institute of Statistics, which generates information concerning employment, unemployment, characteristics, composition, structure, and functioning of the labor market through surveys. And finally, there are other institutions like the Health, Labor and Environment Program of Central America SALTRA, which promotes investigation in this topic, generates information as well as endorses training regarding occupational safety as an important issue in the country.

Neutron Metrology in the United States-Where We've Been, Where We Are Now and What We Need to Do Moving Forward.

Neutron metrology in the United States must be based on traceability to standards maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This article reviews the history of NIST's neutron-metrology efforts, the loss of those capabilities, and attempts to restore them. Recommendations are made to ensure that neutron dosimetry performed in the United States meets the requirements set forth by the International Standards Organization and other international and national authorities.

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.

Rubbing Elbows and Blowing Smoke: Gender, Class, and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Patent Office.

The United States Patent Office of the 1850s offers a rare opportunity to analyze the early gendering of science. In its crowded rooms, would-be scientists shared a workplace with women earning equal pay for equal work. Scientific men worked as patent examiners, claiming this new occupation as scientific in opposition to those seeking to separate science and technology. At the same time, in an unprecedented and ultimately unsuccessful experiment, female clerks were hired to work alongside male clerks. This article examines the controversies surrounding these workers through the lens of manners and deportment. In the unique context of a workplace combining scientific men and working ladies, office behavior revealed the deep assumption that the emerging American scientist was male and middle class.