Opinion: Why we need a strong and independent public health service
President John Adams founded the U.S. Public Health Service in 1798 to protect U.S. citizens from epidemics. U.S. Marine Hospitals were strategically positioned at major port cities across the country because travelers spread disease. The U.S. Marine Hospital in Memphis (now a residential complex) was placed on the bluffs right above the port of Memphis precisely to prevent another yellow fever epidemic from devastating our city. (Lance Murphey/Daily Memphian file)
Jim Bailey
Jim Bailey, MD, MPH, FACP, is the Robert S. Pearce endowed chair in internal medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, director of the Center for Health Systems Improvement, and founding executive director of the Tennessee Population Health Consortium.
“To deploy truly lifesaving public health care in this pandemic requires a spirit of self-government primarily motivated by love of neighbor and a sense of personal responsibility.”
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140 years after yellow fever, surprisingly little has changed
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