GUEST COLUMN
|
May 2008
Meet Our Featured Guest Columnist:
Wendy Wertheimer
Wendy Wertheimer is a senior advisor in the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health. She has been involved in HIV/AIDS issues since the early years of the epidemic and worked alongside Jonathan Mann, head of the global response to AIDS at the World Health Organization.
Q: What does "health and human rights" mean to you?
A: The AIDS pandemic, and the global strategies developed to confront it, have provided a model to demonstrate that the concepts of public health and human rights are inextricably linked. This linkage is bi-directional. First, stigma, prejudice and discrimination in all forms, including, violence, rape, racism, sexism, homophobia, marginalization, and the low status of women, contribute to individual vulnerability to HIV infection and also help fuel the spread of the epidemic in societies and communities where such discrimination exists. Second, coercive, mandatory, or restrictive measures, such as isolation or quarantine, or measures that do not respect patient confidentiality and human dignity are counter-productive in responding to the epidemic, and may keep individuals from seeking necessary prevention and care in such settings. Thus the public health response to the AIDS pandemic must incorporate human rights, as the two are intertwined.
A: The AIDS pandemic, and the global strategies developed to confront it, have provided a model to demonstrate that the concepts of public health and human rights are inextricably linked. This linkage is bi-directional. First, stigma, prejudice and discrimination in all forms, including, violence, rape, racism, sexism, homophobia, marginalization, and the low status of women, contribute to individual vulnerability to HIV infection and also help fuel the spread of the epidemic in societies and communities where such discrimination exists. Second, coercive, mandatory, or restrictive measures, such as isolation or quarantine, or measures that do not respect patient confidentiality and human dignity are counter-productive in responding to the epidemic, and may keep individuals from seeking necessary prevention and care in such settings. Thus the public health response to the AIDS pandemic must incorporate human rights, as the two are intertwined.