ELEPHANTS IN THE LIVING ROOM AND “ISMS” OF ALL KINDS—WHIMSICAL AND REFLECTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BOARD

In this issue, we are reminded how fortunate we are to have such erudite Board members who actively contribute to our journal’s scope and depth. An Editorial from Nancy Milio, Mother of Healthy Public Policy, tackles the vexed question of ideology, science, and public policy as applied to public health. She lays on the table the scary consequences of the ideologically driven policies of the Bush administration, with “faith based programmes” in departmental areas as varied as agriculture, housing, health, justice, and the Veteran’s Administration now receiving two billion pounds a year, and Orwellian phenomena such as the Centers for Disease Control being told not to monitor the birth rates of girls in abstinence only programmes. Milio goes on to describe the consequences of faith’s twin, the market, as an uncritical ideology that brings with it less transparency and an erosion of civil rights. Penetration of religious fundamentalism into policy, and the elephant in the living room that nobody in political life dares talk about, bodes ill for the …