What pact for science? Ethics, public health and communication with citizens

Abstract

Ethical issues in the field of public health and vaccination policies deal both with the styles of dialogue between health care workers and citizens (as potential patients) and the general kinds of pact/covenant announced and implemented among science, politics and society. If a scientific agency publicly promises to fulfil a mission, it has to declare: i) the reasons and limits of the so called scientific autonomy (and the role of ethics committees in morally discussing and evaluating the research-methodology); ii) the aims of medicine as the domain where the new evidences are applied to foster clinical or epidemiological results; iii) the communication-impasse, the information-mistakes, the hidden ethical notions and the cultural factors of the wide misunderstanding between science and society, biomedicine and political sphere