Jon Shaffer

Jon commented on the article | over 2 years ago

Students Build Huge Network To Fight For Global Health Equity

Thanks so much for this post!

This is an exciting moment for our organization - we are currently in FIRST place for today's competition on the Facebook Giving Challenge (we can win $1000!) and we are making a run for first overall in the competition (we could win $50,000!).

Donate here: www.imagine2030.org/donate

It would be wonderful if each of you could match my $10 donation to help us grow this movement, expand to new chapters, and continue to provide valuable support to grassroots health organizations around the world.

Thanks so much, and feel free to email me with any questions!

In solidarity,

Jon Shaffer

jon@globemed.org
Jon commented on the article | over 2 years ago

Why We Can't Have It All

the thing that I think that you get wrong in these posts is that you fail to look at the world as an integrated system. Instead, you like to pick on Burundi as a case study of an isolated case of poor governance - folks who just seem to make bad decisions.

Looking at countries as isolated units that make decisions on their own about how to spend "scarce" dollars is easy, but I think incomplete. The economy of Burundi is often just as tied to decisions made in outside the country (Washington and elsewhere) as in Bujumbura. Have you read "the uses of haiti" by paul farmer? i think its an interesting and instructive lesson on how international political economy matters and can entrap countries in structural violence.
Jon commented on the article | over 2 years ago

The Health Equation: Equity, Justice, and Global Health

Are you really saying there is no injustice in the difference in life expectancies between Burundi and Luxembourg (48 and 78 years respectively)? Are you saying these differences just happened by accident - without "actions (or the lack thereof)".

Perhaps we need a re-reading of Burundi's history... looking forward to the justification in your future post.
Jon commented on the article | over 2 years ago

Another Look at Health As a Human Right

Hi Michael,

I thought you and your readers would enjoy this great interview with Helen Potts, over at the Physicians for Human Rights blog, http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/right-to-health/conversation-with-helen-potts.html

One of many money quotes:

" But more than anything else, we have to show that consideration of the right to health can actually make health policy, programs and projects better. When we view policies, programs and projects through the prism of the right to health, they will be more accessible, sustainable, and robust.

The policies, programs and projects will be more meaningful to the people that they are meant to serve."

Another, which I think addresses the thought that health and human rights should be considered in a narrow, legalistic sense:

"It’s not about litigation; it’s about involving people in decisions that affect their health. It is about placing people at the center."
Jon commented on the article | over 2 years ago

Is Health a Human Right?

Great post - however, I'd like to challenge you a bit on one of your points.

You say that based on article 12 of the ICESCR, people do not necessarily have the right to be healthy - rather they have the right to the highest attainable standard of health, based on the available resources of a given society. Governments have the duty to promote - to the best of their ability - the health of their population, but to the degree that they are constrained by a lack of resources, they can be let off of the hook for rights violations.

I agree that you can't blame a poor country, working diligently with the resources at its disposal to promote the health of its population, if it falls short on guaranteeing high levels of health to its population. Looking within this isolated bubble of an individual poor nation, of course it seems unreasonable to consider health as an absolute right. It’s just not going to happen in a country where most people live on less than a dollar per day. However, your analysis completely fails to address the question of why the global distribution of resources is the way that it is.

The fact is that most of the poorest countries in the world - those most constrained in their ability to grant the human right to health - bore the brunt of an extremely violent history characterized colonialism, slavery, resource extraction, and domination. This violence was not random either. The nations to benefit from this domination and resource extraction are most of the wealthiest nations today - the countries most able to promote some level of health as a right to their populations.

It could be argued that this legacy of colonialism has been continued through the structural adjustment policies promoted - pushed in fact - by the World Bank and the IMF during the 80s. These requirements, tacked on to World Bank loans, forced fledgling nations in Africa to shrink government budgets, cut spending on social services (such as health care and primary education), privatize industry, and liberalize trade regulations. The neoliberal orthodoxy has had disastrous consequences on the health of people throughout the "global south" and has played a very direct role in limiting what might appear like their highest attainable level of health - and thus their right to health.

Instead of looking at health as a human right from the narrow context of an individual poor nation, and the duty of that nation's government to guarantee it, perhaps we should look at our collective duty to make common cause with the poor. We should realize that perhaps the inability of poor nations to grant the right to health to their citizens didn’t just “happen” all of a sudden – instead it is the result of a history and set of policies that the “global north” have benefitted from. Taken from that perspective, speaking of the human right to health is as much a call for poor governments to create effective health policies as it is a moral duty for us to make available the necessary resources and to remove the economic and political structural barriers preventing poor countries from being able to do so.
Jon commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

The New Scientist Thinks We Can End AIDS in One Generation But I Don't

Hey Alanna,

I have a bit of a dissenting opinion over at www.sghequity.org. I'd love to hear your thoughts as to why it is not a good idea to promote universal access to HIV meds.

Thanks,
Jon

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