Colleagues:

Consider contacting the Toronto Globe and Mail letters to
editor (fax: 416-585-5085) or the Toronto Star
(fax: 416-869-4322) on its coverage of "health issues."  I did
so below...  Help is needed!

e-mails are: [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]

----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Globe and Mail Editor:

   In the 1960s  and 1970s the American Negro College Fund ran
a series of public service ads that coveyed the message that
"A Young Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste." Why do I find
myself thinking that "A Talented Reporter is a Terrible Thing
to Waste" as I read Globe and Mail's Public Health reporter
Andre Picard's disconnected, and seemingly endless, series of
articles on the health effects of tomatos, exercise, alcohol,
and this gene or that gene.
   A burgeoning literature on the "New Public Health" is
examining the strong impacts upon population health of social
institutions, work conditions, income and income inequality,
community structures, and political organization. One need go
no further than Ontario under the Mike Harris regime to see
the population health effects of neo-liberal ideology and
destruction of the social safety net -- an area already being
written about -- yet ignored by the Press -- in published
articles that have appeared in Canadian public health and
social policy journals.
   Will Globe editors allow their reporters to "get with it"
and enlighten its readers about these exciting new
developments in public health? Or are Globe readers to
continue to hear about the latest "discovery" concerning the
health effects of this esoteric fruit or vegetable as they see
their society's health collapse around them without comment
by your talented staff?

Dennis Raphael
Associate Professor
Public Health Sciences
University of Toronto
978-7567

cc.  Various "health and medical" reporters from the Globe and
Toronto Star


Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 308
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice: (416) 978-7567
fax: (416) 978-2087
e-mail:   [log in to unmask]