Re: e-mail addresses, JCAHO, and the Trilateral Committee

[John Goldsmith <gjohn@bgumail.bgu.ac.il>]

	Some of us readers may not know the nature, status, or authority 
of JCAHO..is it the Joint Com mittee on  Alternative Health Outcomes ?
If health based standards are being seriously considered, by what mechanism
does epidemiological input get considered ?  Close as some of us in 
epidemiology feel to public health, there is sometimes the feeling that
neatness and short term effects are the bywords of purely engineering-based
exposure standards, and that protection from possible long-term effects
is given second place, partly because of the real difficulties in 
interpreting epidemiological data.  In my view, the only answer that
makes sense is to include epidemiologists in the group  evaluating and 
recommending standards, and to get away from body-counting and put more
emphasis on biological indicators of exposure and effect.
                             John Goldsmith, M.D., Epidemiology Unit
                             Ben Gurion U. of the Negev, Beer Sheva
                             Israel