Concurrent with Public Health Week, April 4-11, the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice is releasing our exciting May-June issue. Contents span the history of the discipline and set out a future challenge. The first article describes the first naturally acquired case of anthrax in the United States in 30 years; the case involves an individual working with dried animal hides. In addition, to this New York City case, also a second article reports on two cutaneous anthrax cases in Connecticut, in a drum-maker and his child using West African hides. Anthrax has been a dreaded disease for at least 5000 years. This disease of animals occasionally infects man, most often through cutaneous contact with an ailing animal. In 1876, Robert Koch, then a German country doctor, provided the first proof that a specific micro-organism could cause a specific disease (anthrax) leading to the establishment of the germ theory of disease and later his famous Koch Postulates (1). Berton Roueche, author of the Eleven Blue Men, also wrote A Man Called Hoffman describing a case of anthrax in 1964 in an installer of insulation. The comprehensive investigations reported in this issue of the Journal are influenced by the intentional B anthracis attacks of 2001 and provide a bridge to public health past emphasizing the continued requirement for vigilance against the reoccurrence of infectious threats.
Also appearing in this issue is a commentary by David Holtgrave, “Public Health Errors: Costing Lives, Millions at a Time.” Holtgrave introduces a new and challenging term—public health error. He offers a categorization and, as his title implies, explains the impact of these errors in lives lost. A counterpoint commentary follows, “Toward a Taxonomy of Public Health Error,” by Kenneth Deville and the Editor (LFN). Those of us involved in public health quality assurance efforts need to pay particular attention to this new concept.
Lloyd F. Novick, MD, MPH
Editor
(1) Roueche, B. “Annals of Medicine, A Man Called Hoffman” New Yorker, April 24, 1965, 51- 80
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has provided complimentary access to the January/February 2010 issue of JPHMP focusing on Quality Improvement in Public Health. Take advantage of that content and share it with your colleagues through the 'E-mail to Colleague' feature.