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Eliminating Politics From Public Health

Wheeling-Ohio County Board of Health members are right to wonder what on earth being a Democrat or Republican has to do with safeguarding the public.

Last week, board members approved a resolution asking the Legislature to eliminate an archaic requirement. It is that members of local health boards be divided as evenly as possible among political parties.

For all practical purposes, that meant Republicans and Democrats in the past. Now, however, more than one-fourth of state residents identify with neither of those parties.

As board Chairman Dr. John Holloway put it, political party affiliation is “restrictive and irrelevant” to deciding policies meant to protect the public’s health.

Perhaps the state rule had some value in the past. But legislators should eliminate it. It just doesn’t make sense.

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