Round Table

Abstract

DONATO: I was the first chairman of the CMSI and I was followed by Professor Shillingford and finally now by Professor Laurent, who is actually running the group. When we speak of perspectives of coronary care uni ts, as a Council for Medical and Public Heal th Research of the European Communi ty, we must look at it on both sides; the Medical Research side and the Public Health side. Until perhaps the first half of this century, that difference would have been nonsense because progress in health care was strictly linked to progress in medical research. But now in this particular heavily technologically loaded areas of health care, there is some sort of divergency, there is a phylosophical divergency between health care programs and medical research programs. And this unfortunate divergency has essentially an economic reason. When the cost of heal th care goes up to 10 % of gross national product, then it’s obvious that people start to worry and immediately, one of the easiest things is to accuse the scientific community of pollution of technology, of uncontrolled transfer of technology to health care, and of indiscriminate transfer of technology. There is no doubt that the scientific community has to face this reali ty. The real point is to devise mechanisms that will not stop scientific progress but will not kill the economy of our countries. Now this demands very responsible attitudes, both on the side of heal th workers and on -the side of the scientific community.