[The restructuring of national sanitary inspectorate with regard to environmental hazards and health needs of the population].

The article presents the history of Polish sanitary and epidemiological services from 1918 until contemporary times. Emphasizing many achievements of National Sanitary Inspectorate, which are responsible for the low sick-rate of infectious diseases in Poland, the article also points to the increasing number and growing severity of environmental hazards in recent years. The article discusses problems caused by the "old" infectious diseases, which, though until recently regarded as passed, are posing threats to the society nowadays (e.g. TB, pestis, cholera). Equally, the article highlights problems caused by the "new" highly infectious diseases (e.g. Ebola fever, AIDS). Moreover, the article focuses on the particularly relevant subject of tackling biological weapons, the use of which can be traced past the recent events after September 11 and back to the Middle Ages. Finally, the article stresses the role of sanitary and epidemiological services in fighting recent animal epidemics, such as foot-and-mouth disease and mad cow disease. Discussing particular cases of the environmental hazards mentioned above, recorded in Poland, the article emphasizes the importance of the proper staff selection for National Sanitary Inspectorate. In the past decade in Poland, Sanitary Inspectors were selected mostly with regard to their political orientation, rather than their professional background. The author of the article hopes that human life and health will be treated with more respect in Poland in the neart future and the positions of Sanitary Inspectors will be given to professionals with proper epidemiological preparation. Radical changes in the policy of staff selection, modernization of training programs, as well as creation of a more practical structure of National Sanitary Inspectorate are the necessary conditions for transforming sanitary and epidemiological services in Poland into reliable and prestigious institutions, capable of dealing with the environmental hazards of the twenty-first century.