The whole concept of health being public has to go. There's no such thing as collective health any more than there's a collective brain. Health is one of the most personal, individual attributes of any human being. What does that even mean, to say "the public's" health? An aggregate? An average? A mean? Any way it's defined it's meaningless, one of those stupid terms people use as an approximation and assume they understand, but which, when examined, completely falls apart.
While the concept doesn't have a real meaning it does have a real function, which is to give the government a reason to interfere in people's decisions and to hook them on "aid," which gives the government even more reason to interfere, since it's holding the purse strings.
I believe I understand what you are saying, and agree that unfortunately public health - like many other things - has been politiziced and used for nefarious purposes. But, before the "covid pandemic", when "public health" was notoriously used by politicians, and unfortunately by so-called health-care professionals to control individual decisions, scare the world and interfere with people's rights, I don't remember anyone complaining nor questioning the concept of public health. The study of public health has resulted in a lot of useful knowledge that has helped understand the determinants of health. Some of these determinants of health require "community" actions (like sanitation, food handling, potable water distribution...); in fact, some people critizice that there may not be "enough" control of some apparently harmful environmental exposures. Some determinants of health should be left to individual decisions (like what you decide to eat, smoke, or put into your body). Never heard anyone complaining of regulations to control the way food should be handled in a restaurant. "Public health" becomes a problem when it is inappropriately used to control individual decisions.
The whole concept of health being public has to go. There's no such thing as collective health any more than there's a collective brain. Health is one of the most personal, individual attributes of any human being. What does that even mean, to say "the public's" health? An aggregate? An average? A mean? Any way it's defined it's meaningless, one of those stupid terms people use as an approximation and assume they understand, but which, when examined, completely falls apart.
While the concept doesn't have a real meaning it does have a real function, which is to give the government a reason to interfere in people's decisions and to hook them on "aid," which gives the government even more reason to interfere, since it's holding the purse strings.
I believe I understand what you are saying, and agree that unfortunately public health - like many other things - has been politiziced and used for nefarious purposes. But, before the "covid pandemic", when "public health" was notoriously used by politicians, and unfortunately by so-called health-care professionals to control individual decisions, scare the world and interfere with people's rights, I don't remember anyone complaining nor questioning the concept of public health. The study of public health has resulted in a lot of useful knowledge that has helped understand the determinants of health. Some of these determinants of health require "community" actions (like sanitation, food handling, potable water distribution...); in fact, some people critizice that there may not be "enough" control of some apparently harmful environmental exposures. Some determinants of health should be left to individual decisions (like what you decide to eat, smoke, or put into your body). Never heard anyone complaining of regulations to control the way food should be handled in a restaurant. "Public health" becomes a problem when it is inappropriately used to control individual decisions.
Also a good read: “Shepherds for Sale” about leftist infiltration into churches.
Public health might have a legitimate role if it wasn’t so corrupted. As it stands, I agree with you completely get rid of it.
Amen
The surgeon general role should be filled, if at all, by a buncha fanatical toxicologists. Not Elizabeth Holmes snake oil types.