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2017 vol. 41 no. 4 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 327
© 2017 The Authors
Editorial
Petrichor is a beautiful word. It is the
name for the smell of rain on its way,1
one of those smells that warns that
action will soon need to be taken, be it search
out an umbrella, nd shelter or, if it has not
rained for a while, maybe prepare to dance.
Rain is an essential human resource for use
in hygiene and food preparation, watering
food crops, and animal husbandry, and also
for infrastructure activities from recreation
to hydro-electricity production. But, besides
the mundane problems of raining on the
washing or delaying the bus home, storm
rains aect populations in much more serious
ways including ooding and landslides. For
these more critical events, we have well-
developed, evolving warning systems and
risk management plans designed to protect
us from and mitigate the eects of disasters
such as res, oods, and major storms. We use
these routinely. Our communities know what
we are supposed to do on days of predicted
extreme bushre warning and cyclones. We
have emergency warning telephone trees
and phone applications that actively involve
many organisations working together in
intricate ways to predict and mitigate the
worst eects of natural disaster events,
especially to protect the people who will
be aected. This year, Cyclone Debbie has
delivered a powerful reminder to Australia of
just how devastating storms can be: loss of
life, property damage, stock and crop losses,
resulting in disruption to export income and
food prices for many months to come that
will aect the livelihood of thousands of
people over a wide area of Australia and New
Zealand.
We have been experiencing some warning
signals from the other side of the Pacic that
for things are going to change, probably quite
stormily. While not necessarily a bad thing,
usually we approach change with a degree
of planning, paying due consideration to the
negative, as well as positive, eects of the
change.
From a public health perspective, storms
brewing in the United States certainly
warrant attention. While it is common – even
usual – for new governments to design
their own policies based on their individual
philosophies, generally the basic facts
and science behind these is commonly
acknowledged, understood and, in general,
agreed upon, even if the ne detail is
questioned. However, the latest American
President apparently has some unusual views
about scientic evidence, and has appointed
a set of advisers who, for the most part,
appear to think similarly to him.
Why does this matter? Well, for starters,
years of careful climate science and progress
towards Paris Agreement targets are in
danger of being mothballed. The US EPA
biography of new head Scott Pruitt suggests
that he is committed to a ‘strong and healthy
environment’,2 but as one of his biographies
explains, “Pruitt … is a leading advocate
against the EPA’s activist agenda”.3 Reduced
vehicle emission targets, so recently regarded
as sensible, are to be revisited.4 Non-
renewable energy resources such as coal and
iron are assured as being good for us all, a
stance regarded elsewhere as smoggy. While
Trump’s views about the validity of science on
the contribution of humans to climate change
might be changing, he is more concerned
about mitigation eects on the economy
than on human health.5
The new President does seem to be keen on
water. In fact, he likes it so much he has his
own brand of bottled spring water called
Trump Ice – curious for someone so keen on
removing drugs from the streets. During his
campaign he promised, paradoxically, to both
improve water management (particularly
rebuilding old reticulation systems) and
repeal regulations around clean water,
including those designed to protect marshes
and wetlands essential for water health. Now
we hear that attempts are being made to stop
the not-yet enacted sensible consolidation
of confusing water-related legislation in the
1972 Clean Water Act (called Waters of the
United States Clean Water Rule),6 which was
designed to protect American citizens’ health
due to the implications of waters crossing
jurisdictional boundaries.7
When it comes to vaccine policy, it is hard to
nd a real fact among the many alternatives
that pepper the internet. Discounting the
(denitely fake news) 90-day ban on vaccines,
there is a question of whether a commission
into vaccine safely will be instituted. Trump
has met with vaccine sceptics Robert Kennedy
Jr and Andrew Wakeeld, and is widely quoted
as saying “I am totally in favour of vaccines …
but I want smaller doses over a longer period of
time.” In 2015, he tweeted “Healthy young child
goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot
of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes
- AUTISM. Many such cases!”8 With Tom Price
(a conservative ex-orthopaedic surgeon and
vocal critic of the Aordable Health Care Act)9
in charge of Health and Social Services, no
wonder our public health colleagues at CDC
are worried about outbreaks; happily though,
public condence in the US immunisation
program appears sound.10
Progress in health insurance coverage through
the Aordable Care Act (PPACA) (Obamacare)
has assured health care for an additional
20 million Americans and has reduced
the number of Americans without health
insurance to an historic low,11 but as this Act is
to be reformed it is worrying that there are to
date no details about the ‘great replacement
plan’.
In Australia, we are not particularly well
protected from these problems. At various
times, members of our government have
been openly sceptical about the need for (and
use of) climate change evidence.13 Although
reaction was swift, vaccine safety has been
questioned by a Federal MP, who described
the policy of child payments being linked to
immunisation completion as “dictatorship”.14
For several years now, the need for public
health regulations on gambling and alcohol
to be treated as a problem in the same way as
tobacco has been apparent, but progress is
painfully slow.15 While there is at last the start
of a move towards investment in renewable
resources, scepticism about reliability16 and
health eects are both noisily debated,17
changes are driven by economic imperatives12
rather than a concern for our ailing planet, and
bickering about Medicare and its funding is a
political sport.
So, there are some of the gathering public
health storm clouds. We have a choice:
take shelter and hide, or prepare to use the
umbrella of incontrovertible scientic facts.
Petrichor is everywhere.
doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12707
Petrichor
Priscilla Robinson
ANZJPH Editor
Department of Public Health, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Victoria
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modications or adaptations are made.
328 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 2017 vol. 41 no. 4
© 2017 The Authors
Editorial
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Correspondence to: Adjunct Associate Professor
Priscilla Robinson, Department of Public Health,
College of Science, Health and Engineering,
La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086;
e-mail: priscilla.robinson@latrobe.edu.au