Health and Human Rights: A Journalist’s Perspective

In 1995, after producing a successful weekly TV program about apartheid in South Africa against all odds, we broadcast an edition of a new series that explored revolutionary ideas about human rights, such as those then being formulated by a visionary at Harvard named Jonathan Mann. In our show, called Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television, Dr. Mann laid out in typically brilliant fashion the crystal-clear thinking behind his vision of human rights – and in particular, his then (and still) controversial notion that health and human rights are inextricably linked, that access to quality health care is a self-evident, inalienable right shared by all human beings, as recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted without dissent by the entire United Nations sixty years ago. The late Dr. Mann was well out in front of most other human rights “professionals” when it came to his analysis and dissection of basic human rights — and in particular as they relate to the intersection of health and society. (Mann does such an elegant job of expressing this in the program that I will refrain from further comment). You can view the entire episode at the end of this post. The difficulties we faced in producing the show at all is a long story. But we think it's worth sharing with HHR readers who might think that health and human rights issues are taken for granted at the global level.

One baby at a time: Saving children in Lesotho

I’ve been supporting Partners In Health’s project in Lesotho for more than two years – almost since it began. Lesotho is a world away – both literally & figuratively – from the FXB Center office in Boston where I work and where the Health and Human Rights editorial office is based. An independent country completely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho is home to almost two million people, most of whom have never heard of human rights or the right to health care. However, they can certainly comprehend the injustice of suffering from treatable disease without access to treatment.

Taming the Perfect Storm

As the nationwide crisis in the housing and credit markets unfolds, a community-based coalition of health care and social service providers, affordable housing ...