Public Health & Human Rights

Images of Public Health: H1N1 Flu

The above is a picture of chicken eggs that are being used to create (replicate, really) the 2009 H1N1 virus for use in H1N1 flu vaccines in China (same process used in the U.S. and every other country).

 

Beginning next week, H1N1 flu vaccine will be shipped to every U.S. state, where it will be available to you at your doctor’s office or local drug store or supermarket pharmacy. Is becoming sick with the H1N1 flu something to panic about? No. Is getting a vaccine to lower your chances of getting it a good idea? Yes, especially if you are:

• Pregnant (higher risk of complications to you and baby)
• 6 months – 24 yrs of age (higher risk of complications and many opportunities for close contact with others)
• The mother or father (or caregiver) of a child younger than 6 months
old (higher risk of complications and they cannot be vaccinated)
• A healthcare provider (source of infection for vulnerable patients)

The first immunizations available (next week and following weeks) against H1N1 in the U.S. will be the nasal-spray version (not for those of you who are pregnant). Soon after that injections will be available. The biggest difference between the spray and the injection (besides the obvious difference between a needle and a spray) is that the spray gives you a live weakened flu virus while the injection gives you a dead flu virus. Both are safe and effective, although you may experience some mild cold-like symptoms with the spray, as my daughter did (since it is a live virus).

The flu is coming very soon to a location near you. My family has already received our flu immunizations and we will also be in line for the H1N1 flu shots.

Other resources:

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

Participation, power, and rights

I want to highlight a good article by a well-regarded leader in the field of health and rights.  Alicia Ely Yamin recently wrote about the importance of societal participation, power, and its impact on health and rights.    

"A fundamental distinction of a human rights approach to development and policy-making that affects health is that it aims to enable those who are most impacted by poverty, patriarchy, and disease to be active participants in constructing the solutions to their problems..."

"Through effective participation, we can challenge political and other forms of exclusion that prevent us from having power over the decisions and processes that affect our lives and our health. Thus, if patterns of suffering and ill health must be understood as reflections of power relations as much as biological factors in a rights framework, the goal of a rights-based approach to participation should be to subvert the subordination and marginalization — the “pathologies of power” in Paul Farmer’s terminology — that prevent certain groups and individuals from realizing their rights..."

"In addition to political participation, other civil rights, such as freedoms of association and information, are essential to allowing people effective participation in health, understood as an exercise in citizenship. For example, there is substantial evidence that when small farmers have information that allows them to compare prices, rules, and policies, their participation in decisions affecting their lives rises significantly. As Peter Uvin notes, the right to information has been a cornerstone of a rights-based approach to development in India, which has had dramatic effects on health. Similarly, the elimination of discrimination, which prevents certain groups, such as women or minorities, from having an equal opportunity to voice opinions about a given issue that could affect their health, is also key to enabling rights-based participation... "

"...habit, fear, low expectations, and unjust background conditions deform people’s choices and even their wishes for their own lives."

There is much that is worth reading here.  Read her entire article and/or the other relevant articles in the most recent edition of the Health and Human Rights Journal http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr.

Systemic social structures affect health

Excerpts from India's national newspaper, "The Hindu."  For the full article, see here: http://www.hindu.com/2009/08/22/stories/2009082255540800.htm

"Caste is a major indicator of health outcomes and mandates the need for interventions that change social structures. 

The caste system, with its societal stratification and social restrictions, continues to have a major impact on the country. The system, generally identified with Hinduism, is also prevalent among Christians, Sikhs and Muslims. While some barriers are broken in urban settings, many continue to persist in rural India. While the secular, socialistic and democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution demand equality of outcomes, the inherent caste-related inequality cont inues to dominate reality in Indian society. Much of the debate has focussed on reservation in educational institutions and employment, and rarely highlights the inequalities in health.

...

Social constructs: Many studies have documented that the caste system is a social construct in the absence of any real genetic differences among castes. Caste, in many ways, is similar to race, which is also a social concept without genetic basis. Nevertheless, these social constructs seem to have a stranglehold on human thought, perpetuating prejudice and propagating unjust societal structures.

...

It is widely recognised that the determinants of health are social and economic rather than purely medical. The poor health of people from the lower castes, their social exclusion and the steep social gradient are due to the unequal distribution of power, income, goods and services. Caste is inextricably linked to and is a proxy for socio-economic status in India. The restricted access of those from the lower castes to clean water, sanitation, nutrition, housing, education, health care and employment is due to a toxic combination of poor social policies and programmes, unfair economic arrangement and bad politics.

...

Caste plays out in India just as race plays out in the U.S. and the social class in Britain. Birth seems to determine health, education, employment, social and economic outcomes. Systemic injustice requires much more than a change of heart; it requires changes in social structures. Social injustice is killing people and mandates the ethical imperative of improving the social determinants of health."

The article is written by professor KS Jacob, on faculty at the Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu.

 

Love: The foundation for human rights

I was listening to a DVD given to me by my brother-in-law (thanks Ben) in which the speaker was talking briefly about human rights and the fact that rights, on their own, are relatively empty.  That without a solid underpinning, they become rather subjective. 

As I was thinking more about the point, I came across a relatively recent (2005) book by Thomas WIlliams on the topic of human rights from a faith perspective.  As a book I had not see before, I perused it and found it very insightful.  I also found a nice summary of the book in the journal FIrst Things from the year 2005.

What I like about the author is that he makes human rights, sometimes an elusive concept, relatively easy to grasp (although the 300+ page book is, at times, rather academic).  The author agrees with Pope John Paul II when he stated, "a person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love."  The author writes that a right, considerably different than defined by Websters Dictionary, is "the moral capacity to claim from another what one deserves."  And what one deserves is love. 

As the author points out, Jesus stated that one of the two greatest commandments is to "love your neighbor as yourself."  So, as the reviewer in First Things states, "we must will for our neighbors things that are truly good for our neighbor's own sake."  The commandment to love one's neighbor shows the inherent dignity of all people and their "intrinsic lovableness."  So, Williams argues, this Biblical love is the most basic human right, the very basis of human rights.  Without this foundation, the concept of rights, Williams argues, falls apart and becomes simply subjective. 

Thomas Williams' book, "Who is my neighbor?" is a solid read both providing the Biblical perspective and some insight into the language of human rights.  I have not yet read the entire book, but I plan to.

 

After a long hiatus...

It's been nearly a year since I last wrote anything here.  Hard to believe!  If not for the fact that typepad had continued to deduct a monthly fee from my account, I may have abandoned this.  But, after all those months of giving money and after several attempts at logging back on and trying to remember my password, I have been motivated to renew my efforts here.  There certainly is much to talk about in the world today. 

Sometimes life just becomes too busy to write much here, which is what happened a year ago or so.  Work, home, and church all took more of my time and I just didn't have much time to write.  Which isn't necessarily bad.  But, I think I'd like to take a second run at this, although my postings may be less frequent and less verbose.

If you have just recently stumbled upon this blog and you consider yourself a "conservative," you'll find some of my views are more "liberal" than you might like.  If you consider yourself a "liberal," you'll find some of my views are more conservative than you would like.  Either way, my intention here is to wrestle with issues of health and rights from a Biblical faith perspective.