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The right to health: more than rhetoric
Editorial
The USA should allow the free exchange of scientific ideas
See Correspondence page 463
Last week, eight Muslim and Islamic scholars sent a petition to the South African Government calling for a UN investigation to be started into the treatment of Muslims travelling from South Africa to the USA. The men claim to have experienced discrimination, because of their appearance, at the hands of airport and immigration officials either en route to the USA or on US soil. Their case is not an isolated one. Since the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the USA, there has been an upsurge in anti-Muslim travel incidents. This trend is a concern for those involved in protecting human rights and for the scientific community. In today’s Correspondence we publish anecdotal evidence that suggests that UK researchers with Muslim-sounding names are being denied the opportunity to travel to scientific conferences in the USA. In the letter, Izhar Khan from the University of Aberdeen details the experience of one of his Muslim research fellows who has not been issued with a visa to travel to a nephrology meeting in the USA. Khan notes that
two other Muslim researchers from the university have had a similar experience. When The Lancet asked the US embassy in London about their processes for issuing visas for conferences they said: “There is no special process for applications from persons with Muslim names...All persons with common names, regardless of nation of origin, may be subject to administrative processing as there is a greater likelihood that their name will match the name of someone listed in our database who is ineligible for a visa.” Whether these researchers have been subject to extra “administrative processing” is unclear. Either way, they have been denied the opportunity to present their scientific work to an international audience. US scientific and medical societies that host international conferences should raise the issue with Congress and the US State Department and demand that immigration laws do not interfere with the free exchange of ideas. If Muslim voices are prevented from speaking at international conferences, then the whole scientific community will lose out. ■ The Lancet
The right to health: more than rhetoric
Still Pictures
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration
For more information on the report from the Special Rapporteur see http://www. ohchr.org/english/ bodies/hrcouncil/docs/ 4session/A.HRC.4.28.pdf
438
It is more than 6 years since the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted general comment 14, that is, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, otherwise known as “the right to health”. But what has happened since then? Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health outlines the progress of the health and human rights movement in a report that he will present to the Human Rights Council in March. Although there have been a growing number of health and human rights cases decided at national, regional, and international level over the past few years, the report identifies two key obstacles that prevent the movement from gaining momentum: the failure of most mainstream non-governmental organisations to include the right to health in their campaigning activities, and the failure of most health professionals to grasp the concept of the right to health. Take maternal mortality, for example. More than 500 000 women worldwide die from the complications of pregnancy every year. Many of these deaths are
avoidable and so violate women’s rights to life, to health, to equality, and to non-discrimination on a scale that dwarfs other human rights issues, such as the death penalty, that have attracted much attention from human-rights non-governmental organisations. Hunt argues that in the context of the right to health, traditional human rights methods and techniques such as naming and shaming, letter writing campaigns, test cases, and sloganising are no longer enough. Instead, the right to health should be consistently applied across all national and international policymaking processes by using a system of health indicators and benchmarks, such as access to health care, to measure the practical implications of the right to health. Unless greater numbers of well-positioned health professionals understand and support such endeavours, there is little chance of putting the right to health into practice. Health professionals must begin to appreciate that the right to the highest attainable standard of health is more than rhetoric. It is a tool they can use to save lives and reduce suffering. ■ The Lancet www.thelancet.com Vol 369 February 10, 2007
The USA should allow the free exchange of scientific ideas
See Correspondence page 463
Last week, eight Muslim and Islamic scholars sent a petition to the South African Government calling for a UN investigation to be started into the treatment of Muslims travelling from South Africa to the USA. The men claim to have experienced discrimination, because of their appearance, at the hands of airport and immigration officials either en route to the USA or on US soil. Their case is not an isolated one. Since the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the USA, there has been an upsurge in anti-Muslim travel incidents. This trend is a concern for those involved in protecting human rights and for the scientific community. In today’s Correspondence we publish anecdotal evidence that suggests that UK researchers with Muslim-sounding names are being denied the opportunity to travel to scientific conferences in the USA. In the letter, Izhar Khan from the University of Aberdeen details the experience of one of his Muslim research fellows who has not been issued with a visa to travel to a nephrology meeting in the USA. Khan notes that
two other Muslim researchers from the university have had a similar experience. When The Lancet asked the US embassy in London about their processes for issuing visas for conferences they said: “There is no special process for applications from persons with Muslim names...All persons with common names, regardless of nation of origin, may be subject to administrative processing as there is a greater likelihood that their name will match the name of someone listed in our database who is ineligible for a visa.” Whether these researchers have been subject to extra “administrative processing” is unclear. Either way, they have been denied the opportunity to present their scientific work to an international audience. US scientific and medical societies that host international conferences should raise the issue with Congress and the US State Department and demand that immigration laws do not interfere with the free exchange of ideas. If Muslim voices are prevented from speaking at international conferences, then the whole scientific community will lose out. ■ The Lancet
The right to health: more than rhetoric
Still Pictures
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration
For more information on the report from the Special Rapporteur see http://www. ohchr.org/english/ bodies/hrcouncil/docs/ 4session/A.HRC.4.28.pdf
438
It is more than 6 years since the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted general comment 14, that is, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, otherwise known as “the right to health”. But what has happened since then? Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health outlines the progress of the health and human rights movement in a report that he will present to the Human Rights Council in March. Although there have been a growing number of health and human rights cases decided at national, regional, and international level over the past few years, the report identifies two key obstacles that prevent the movement from gaining momentum: the failure of most mainstream non-governmental organisations to include the right to health in their campaigning activities, and the failure of most health professionals to grasp the concept of the right to health. Take maternal mortality, for example. More than 500 000 women worldwide die from the complications of pregnancy every year. Many of these deaths are
avoidable and so violate women’s rights to life, to health, to equality, and to non-discrimination on a scale that dwarfs other human rights issues, such as the death penalty, that have attracted much attention from human-rights non-governmental organisations. Hunt argues that in the context of the right to health, traditional human rights methods and techniques such as naming and shaming, letter writing campaigns, test cases, and sloganising are no longer enough. Instead, the right to health should be consistently applied across all national and international policymaking processes by using a system of health indicators and benchmarks, such as access to health care, to measure the practical implications of the right to health. Unless greater numbers of well-positioned health professionals understand and support such endeavours, there is little chance of putting the right to health into practice. Health professionals must begin to appreciate that the right to the highest attainable standard of health is more than rhetoric. It is a tool they can use to save lives and reduce suffering. ■ The Lancet www.thelancet.com Vol 369 February 10, 2007