[What is the use of an occupational physician?]

In four occidental countries, an analysis of available statistics shows a decrease of industrial accidents, occupational diseases and tuberculosis during the last decades. However this decrease is correlated neither with the number of occupational physicians, nor with the spread of statutory annual medical examinations. Efficient prevention depends mainly on measures taken by the employers and employees themselves. If the medical examination in itself doesn't protect the worker, tasks of the occupational physician should be reassessed: a) to identify health hazards in industry by clinical and epidemiological surveys, b) to advise on safety at work, c) to control the effectiveness of the measures taken by medical examination and/or biological tests of workers exposed to well defined hazards. Occupational health could be developped in Switzerland, with limited cost, but sharing the tasks between the occupational physicians already working in the large industries and new occupational State-physicians in cantons or regions.