title: Double think and double talk.
abstract: The public health debate on population growth and child mortality continues, fuelled by the hypothesis that in allowing more children to survive until reproductive age, programmes such as the Diarrhoeal Diseases Control Programme of the World Health Organization contribute to long-term human misery by overburdening the carrying capacity of the planet. A significant part of the solution put forward is to withhold public health services to children in developing countries. This argument is here refuted on socioeconomic, ethical and humanitarian grounds. An alternative approach is offered, which takes into account the economic and social obligations of the industrialized nations.
authors.affiliation: Division of Diarrhoeal and Acute Respiratory Disease Control, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Claeson
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Hogan
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Waldman
mesh_terms: D002662:Child Health Services; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003256:Community Participation; D003906:Developing Countries; D005193:Family Planning Services; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007390:International Agencies; D011157:Population Dynamics