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March 17, 2007
PUBLIC HEALTH URGED TO PUSH HARDER ON HELMET LAWS
In a paper, “Motorcycle Helmet Laws, Libertarian Values, And Public Health,” published in the American Journal of Public, researchers reviewed the history and status of state laws requiring motorcycle helmet use in order to “characterize the tension between paternalism and libertarian values in the evolution of motorcycle helmet laws across the United States .” Noting the repeated failure of moves to enact effective federal legislation to insure that such laws are enacted, enforced and kept in effect even though they clearly serve the public interest, the authors concluded, “The challenge for public health is to expand on this base of justified paternalism and to forthrightly argue in the legislative arena that adults and adolescents need to be protected from their poor judgments about motorcycle helmet use.”
Posted by MVHAP at March 17, 2007 01:58 PM