What was it like to read “Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time”?

I remembered the time when I looked at myself for the first time in the mirror after a major lifesaving surgery. Fresh wounds, oozing blood, swelling, pale skin, not able to recognize myself for a minute. That’s how it felt. I am wounded, I am bleeding, I fought so hard. How could I have done something wrong? Yet, I cannot argue that Dr. Sandro Galea is wrong. The inequities, lack of infrastructure and funding, lack of discipline in the U.S. Public Health system were visible to the whole world during the pandemic. And Dr. Galea has correctly identified that Public Health, which is traditionally a very liberal field (not in political terms, but that it is open to debate, change, fresh perspectives and celebrates the possibility of being proven wrong in the hope of improving continuously) demonstrated being illiberal at such a critical time. Public Health authorities communicated uncertain information with certainty (like PPE and mask recommendations) and in some cases was perhaps overprotective (like extended lock downs). May be the political polarization was partially responsible. May be years of underfunding and lack of attention left us unprepared. So many reasons have led to the result of loss of trust, especially with some political as well as racial and ethnic groups. It reminds me of the Tuskegee study and how the then U.S Public Health Service lost trust, what it took to partially rebuild it (because we have still not fully regained trust and this widened the inequities during the pandemic). It is time for us to reimagine public health. Invest in infrastructure, modernize our approach and tools. Dr. Galea’s solution is to return to the roots of public health, which are liberal, flexible, and welcome debate and research. I agree with that and add that we cannot overlook the importance of strong growth and branching out along with strengthening the roots. Integration of technology, data driven decision making, global cooperation, transparent communication and inclusion of the groups who we alienated during the pandemic, are all fundamental for reimagining public health. Public health is for everyone, and we won’t succeed until we bring everyone along.