LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT HAS C ANCER

Based on Elias' theory of civilization we have analyzed the relation o f contemporary communities regarding the right of public personalities (the president of a country) to the privacy of information concerning their health. What is the attitude of the doctor to contemporary bioe thical principles? The answer to this question has been sought for in a comparative cross-national analysis of illnesses of the French presi dent Francois Mitterand, the German chancellor Helmut Kohl and a few p residential candidates and presidents of the United States (Bob Dole, Dwight Eisenhower, T.D. Roosevelt, J.F. Kennedy...) The patterns of re vealing medical secrets in cases of leading statesmen are recognizable : 1. Retrospective studies of illnesses of leading politicians (illnes ses, diagnoses, therapy, causes of death - studies of the illness and death of Francois Mitterand and Hubert Humphrey). 2. Ad hoc statements of hazardous health conditions (the attack an Ronald Reagan, B. Jelci n's heart attack, H. Kohl's prostate gland surgery) 3. Prognoses of th e expected health condition of presidential candidates serving as a so urce of information for voters at the oncoming presidential elections (Bob Dole, Bill Clinton). The study of described cases indicates that the conduct of doctors in revealing statesmen's health secrets does no t fit into the medical deontology coder, nor does it follow the bioeth ical recommendations of the World Health Organization.