PHA-Exchange> Report on the Atlanta Lessons Learned from a Rights-Based Approach to Health Conference, Atlanta, GA, USA 14-16 April 2005

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

 from Lanny <Vze2x6qm at verizon.net> -----

Report on the Atlanta Lessons Learned from a Rights-Based Approach to
Health, held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA from 14-16 April 2005
 
By Lanny Smith, PHM Global! Steering Group Member 
(Comments expressed in this report are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the PHM or any other
official institution or movement; please forgive any misinformation; and
please receive a rousing THANK YOU, all who made the conference such an
inspiring and educational event.)
 
People's Summary: From 14-16 April 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA an
unprecedented conference entitled "Lessons Learned from a Rights-Based
Approach to Health" with participants from many countries around the world
resulted in major publicity and building opportunity for the People's Health
Movement Global! and PHM US. PHM US member organization Doctors for Global
Health, DGH, was one of the prime organizers and workers toward the
conference, as well as an official co-sponsor-together with the World Health
Organization; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CARE; Emory
University's Rollins School of Public Health-Institute of Human Rights; and
The Carter Center. The presence of PHM Global´ s own Abhay Shukla and
Claudio Schuftan was a huge help in organizing for the PHM US and the entire
movement. Two specific PHM activities happened(attended by over 70 persons!) 
and an official Workshop: "Health for ALL, NOW! A workshop on mobilization and 
action with the People's Health Movement and PHM US organized
with much help from PHM US in the Hesperian Foundation and attended in
strength by DGH. However, PHM representatives were active throughout the
entire conference, teaching and pushing the social justice agenda. Because
of this conference, though building on a strong foundation of prior
communication, Partners in Health and Physicians for Human Rights decided to
send representatives to PHA2 and thus become closer to PHM US and Global!.
Many other organizations also expressed interest in the PHM; some are
sending individuals to PHA2 to learn more about the movement. Global Health
Watch got attention within the PHM Framework in preparation for the US
Launch at the American Public Health Association in November 2005. 
 
The dream to reality of this conference
was highly influenced by PHM-USA member group Doctors for Global Health,
DGH. 
PHM Members and Friends Present: From India came Abhay Shukla, from Vietnam
Claudio Schuftan, and from PHM USA Lexi Bambas and Maureen McCue joined many
DGH folks (Board Members President Jen Kasper, Vice-President Audrey
Lenhart, Karen Leiter, Lanny Smith, Clyde Smith and Dan Bausch; Volunteers
Joel and Rebecca Sawady; Amy Bryant; President of the Salvadoran Center for
Human Development Ramiro Cortez; and many others). 
 
Happenings:
 
Pre-Conference for Students: A pre-conference for students on
Wednesday evening included Tim Holtz as facilitator, with interventions from
Claudio (about nutrition and including the PHM), Jen Kasper (on the origins
and activities of Doctors for Global Health, including the PHM US group),
Joia Mukherjee (Executive Director of Partners in Health, on the activities
of PIH and on social justice) and a representative from CARE. Students from
around the world were present. 
 
Opening Ceremony Thursday: Opening remarks were by President Jimmy Carter,
words of hope in a difficult time.  
 
Concurrent sessions on Thursday morning included: Theoretical approaches to
Health and Human Rights; Breast Feeding; Client Rights in Sexual and
Reproductive Health; Theorizing Measurement (including Abhay Shukla on
"People's surveys and documentation for right to health care in Maharashtra,
India); Incorporating Human Rights Principles in HIV/AIDS Health
Programming; Roundtable on Sexual and Reproductive Health I.
 
Thursday's noon keynote was by Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mary Robinson, on "Globalization and the Right to Health," in which she
reflected upon the recent world-reactions to the Tsunami, the death of a
Pope and the death by non-feeding of someone brain-dead in Florida, and went
on to discuss the Millennium Development Goals. Questions by Claudio and
Lanny brought the People's Health Movement to the room within the
discussion. 
 
Thursday early afternoon sessions included: Maternal Health; Taking
Opportunities for Education at the Country Level; Human Rights and Practices
of Transnational Corporations (Moderated by Stephen Marks, who as Director
of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights of Harvard
University School of Public Health just included the entire People's Health
Charter within his latest book on Human Rights); Sexual and Gender
Minorities; Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights; Roundtable on
Theoretical Approaches to Health and Human Rights.
 
Thursday late afternoon sessions included: Theoretical Constructions in
Children's Health; Law and Policy for Health and Human Rights; Access to
Affordable Drugs and Intellectual Property (Moderated by Maureen McCue, PHM
US, who attended PHA 2000); Rights Based Framework for Vulnerable
Populations with HIV/AIDS I; Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and
Human Rights Along the Public Health Model; Roundtable on Social
Participation in Health and Human Rights: Examples from the Field. 
 
Thursday evening sessions included: Health and Human Rights Curricula (in
which Claudio Schuftan presented on Elements for a human rights activism
course and curriculum); Special Child Populations; Participatory Strategies
for Policy Development Session; Health Accountability Through Legal Systems;
Roundtable on Vulnerable Populations. 
 
Events Friday: 
 
Morning keynote address was by Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur, on the
right of everyone to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and
mental health. Again, PHM was part of the discussion in the room,
specifically brought forward by Abhay Shukla. 
 
Friday morning sessions included: Measuring the Right to Health (including
Paul Hunt on "Right to Health Indicators; An incremental approach"); Public
Health Methods During Conflict; Financing of Development (Moderated by
aforementioned Stephen Marks, FXB Center, who may be attending
PHA2-unconfirmed); Human Rights Issues in Infectious Disease Control
(including presentations by Adam Richards, soon to be a Social Medicine
resident at Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
on "Malaria Control among internally displaced persons in Eastern Burma: A
public health and human rights approach" and Joia Mukherjee, Executive
Director of Partners in Health, PIH, on "AIDS as a new Paradigm for Human
Rights"); Sexuality; Roundtable on Sexual and Reproductive Health II. 
 
Friday early afternoon sessions included: Health Reparations Through Health
Systems, (Moderated by CDC's Camara Jones, and including a session by Leslie
London on "Health and human rights: what can 10 years of democracy in South
Africa tell us?" and another by Bryan Lindsey on "The US Public Health
Services study of untreated Syphilis among the Negro male at Tuskegee,
Alabama" [an infamous official US Public Health Services study in which
African American males were told they were in treatment for a disease
(syphilis), but not told what, and were withheld from receiving penicillin
while they underwent study for the consequences of untreated syphilis,
including of course death from heart sequelae in about a third and cerebral
manifestations in others, read it in Harrison's Textbook of Medicine-the
study was stopped only when someone "blew the whistle" in 1972!]); Health
Systems (including presentations by Ramiro Cortez of the Center for Human
Development, CDH, in El Salvador, a local partner with DGH, who together
with DGH volunteer Joel Sawady spoke on "Health, human rights and community
development: A case study from rural El Salvdor"); Evidence Based Models
during Conflict (moderated by Barry Levy of Physicians for Social
Responsibility and with presentations by Len Rubenstein, Executive Director
of Physician's for Human Rights, PHR, on "Evidence and human rights
approaches to ending torture"; Karen Leiter, a public health lawyer who is
on the DGH Board but in her day job works with Physicians for Human Rights
and will be representing PHR at the PHA2!, on "Evidence based approaches to
documenting war-crimes against humanity"; Rachel Porter of Doctors of the
World USA on "Documenting evidence of torture: The role of health providers"
[work done in collaboration with the Human Rights Clinic of Montefiore
Medical Center--Residency Programs in Social Medicine and Primary Care at
the South Bronx Community Comprehensive Health Care Center, CHCC; two
Community Health Workers from this center, together with a medical student
from Albert Einstein College of Medicine who has worked with the CHW's for a
year, will be participating in PHA2]; and Charlie Clements, DGH AC Member
and Keynote Speaker for the DGH 2005 General Assembly [to be held in New
York from 5-7 August], author of "Witness to War" [about his 1981 year
serving the civilian population as a physician in guerilla-liberated
portions of El Salvador] on "Monitoring violations of medical neutrality");
Water and Marginalization; Mental Health and Human Rights (moderated by Tim
Holtz); Roundtable on Community Mobilization in the Fight against HIV/AIDS:
Focus on Youth.
 
Friday afternoon late sessions included: Racism and Other Systems of
Injustice (moderated by Camera Jones, with a presentation by H. Jack Geiger,
DGH AC Member and DGH General Assembly Keynote Speaker in 2002, on "Racial
and ethnic disparities in health care: A human rights agenda for the next
decade"); Promoting Rights Based Approaches to Health-Perspectives from
Stakeholders (with a presentation by Len Rubenstein of PHR on "The role of
international human rights organizations in advancing the right to health"
and by Aun Lor, DGH AC member, on "Efforts to build a foundation for
integrating health and human rights at CDC"); Violence Against Women;
Structure, Policy and the Role of the Media in HIV/AIDS; Reducing Stigma and
Discrimination Through Rights Based Programming (moderated by FXB's Sofia
Gruskin, with Karen Leiter presenting on "Population-based approaches to
addressing discrimination in the context of the AIDS pandemic"); Roundtable
on Children's Health.
 
Friday evening sessions included: Food Insecurity (moderated by DGH
President Jen Kasper); Violence Against Women II (included a presentation by
S.M. Siddiquey, organizer of Sex Workers in Calcutta, on "Community-based
initiative on violence against women"; Rights Based Frameworks for
Vulnerable Populations with HIV/AIDS II: Substance Users and Sex Workers
(moderated by Tim Holtz); Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy; Roundtable
on Reparations (with a presentation of DGH AC member Joshua Bloom on
"Including peace-building objectives in post-conflict health sector
reform").
 
Friday early evening saw a performance of "Women and War" sharing voices
from around the world.
 
Friday late evening there was a GATHERING to learn more about the People's
Health Movement, held in the home of Clyde and Renee Smith, parents of
Lanny, all DGH founding members. Over 70 people attended. The evening
started with a general discussion about origins and aims of the PHM,
facilitated by Lexi Bambas (of Global Health Watch), Abhay Shukla, Claudio
Schuftan and Lanny. It was wonderful to see cynicism change to hope in the
voice of so many present, their tough questions of jaded "health for all in
the year 2000" days meeting answers based in community organization and
awareness. Sophia Kuo, a medical student in Vermont with experience in Latin
America, decided then and there to apply for the International People's
Health University just prior to the PHA2, and has subsequently been accepted
by the IPHU and received a grant from her university. Some others present
may attend the PHA2 as press. After vegetarian dinner and spirits of many
types were served, there was salsa, South Asian, Middle Eastern and tango
dancing amidst the general conversation and networking toward social
justice.  
 
Events Saturday: A series of hands-on workshops: Working for health systems
equity-Strengthening human rights (run by Abhay Shukla et al, with the
Global Equity Guage Alliance); Ethics and human rights; Dual loyalty and
public health policy (co-sponsored by PHR in coordination with Trinity
College, the University of Cape Town and Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health); Using a human rights framework to monitor and promote health; Human
Trafficking, Health and Human Rights; Health for ALL, NOW! A workshop on
mobilization and action with the People's Health Movement and PHM US; Human
rights methodology for human rights results: The Tostan experience in
Africa; Structural violence, social capacity and sex workers; A United
States perspective; Prison health in US controlled prisons: Uplifting
prisoners' rights to preserve human rights; Implementing the right to health
of Indigenous peoples; Disability rights as human rights: Applying a
disability inclusion lens to public health programming; Promoting social
reintegration post conflict settings.
 
"Health for ALL, NOW! A workshop on mobilization and action with the
People's Health Movement and PHM US, from the belly. . ." was moderated by
Lanny Smith with help from DGH Vice President Audrey Lenhart, and included
presentations by Lexi Bambas on the Global Health Watch Report; IN FACT;
Ramiro Cortez from El Salvador on Community Health Workers, together with
Joel Sawady; and a special duel workshop session (the first workshop above
on health systems equity joined the PHM for this presentation only) by Abhay
Shukla, on the Health System on Trial movement in India--which left all
present fully inspired. Amazingly enough, many of the PHM party-gathering
discussion dancers of the prior evening were active participants in the
workshop, as well as many persons new to the PHM. Special thanks to Amy
Bryant, DGH volunteer in Las Lomitas, Formosa, Argentina (placed by Julio
Monsalvo) for Spanish translation.  
 
Lessons Learned: In short this Lessons Learned Conference proved a
tremendous organizing aid for PHM US, resulting in the commitment of
Partners in Health and Physicians for Human Rights to send representatives
to PHA2, and in many other organizations and individuals learning about the
PHM and beginning a strong interest in PHM promotion. Even the group DGH
became more fully knowledgeable about and committed to the PHM through the
work of Abhay and Claudio. In addition many persons from around the world
were able to make the voices of their communities and movements heard. The
danger of human rights as a world view being co-opted by government for its
own purposes will require vigilance, as always. 
 


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