PHM-Exch> Investing in Health

[Claudio Schuftan]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Claudio Schuftan <cschuftan at phmovement.org>
Date: Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 12:16 PM
Subject: Fwd: need your advice
To: phm-exchange <phm-exchange at phm.phmovement.org>


From: David Legge <D.Legge at latrobe.edu.au>



  *Investing in health*

David Chiriboga<http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?fieldName=Authors&searchTerm=David+Chiriboga>
, Paulo Buss<http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?fieldName=Authors&searchTerm=Paulo+Buss>
, Anne-Emanuelle
Birn<http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?fieldName=Authors&searchTerm=Anne-Emanuelle+Birn>
, Juan Garay<http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?fieldName=Authors&searchTerm=Juan+Garay>
, Carles Muntaner<http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?fieldName=Authors&searchTerm=Carles+Muntaner>
, Laura Nervi<http://www.thelancet.com/search/results?fieldName=Authors&searchTerm=Laura+Nervi>,
on
behalf of 42 signatories



As public health professionals devoted to global health equity, we would
like to express our deep concern with the *The Lancet*Commission *Global
health 2035: a world converging within a generation* (Dec 7, p
1898),1<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#bib1>
a
re-run of the 1993 World Development Report, whose policies contributed to
the shrinkage of government institutions and massive privatisation and
fragmentation of health-care systems, effectively decreasing coverage and
accessibility.2<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#bib2>
, 3<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#bib3>



*The Lancet* Commission on Investing in Health comprised mostly of
individuals affiliated with or funded by international financial
institutions, corporations, public--private partnerships, bilateral donor
agencies, and their philanthropic and academic partners, mostly from
high-income countries, presents a biased perspective reminiscent of failed
neoliberal prescriptions rooted in the reinvention of formulas by co-opting
terms like universal health care and access. The recommendations are based
on the principle of return on investment, not on health equity, while
creating a double standard: one for the rich and another for the rest of
us. Any policy for the poor is by definition a poor policy.



*The Lancet* Commission's recommendations do not represent the global
health community and are fundamentally flawed by neglecting the principle
of the right to health. The report analyses Millennium Development Goals
progress without reference to stagnant levels of health inequity: 20
million deaths each year, more than a third of all deaths, are avoidable
and caused by socio-economic injustice--a number and a proportion that have
not changed for the past 40
years.4<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#bib4>
Every
individual, organisation, or government working to promote heath equity and
WHO's objective of enjoyment by all peoples of the best attainable level of
health should be on their guard.



*Supplementary appendix*

[image: Open file]<http://download.thelancet.com/mmcs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673614604736/mmc1.pdf?id=caaL7pi1VX8K0_woTdOtu>

PDF <http://download.thelancet.com/mmcs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673614604736/mmc1.pdf?id=caaL7pi1VX8K0_woTdOtu>
(109K)



*References*

1<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#back-bib1>
 Jamison DT, Summers LH, Alleyne G, et al. Global health 2035: a world
converging within a generation. *Lancet* 2013; *382*:1898-1955.

2<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#back-bib2>
 Laurell AC, Arellano OL. Market commodities and poor relief: the World
Bank proposal for Health. *Int J Health Serv* 1996; *26*: 1-18.

3<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#back-bib3>
 Lister J. Globalization and health systems change. WHO Commission on
Social detetminants of Health. University of Ottawa,2008.
http://www.globalhealthequity.ca/webfm_send/14. (accessed March 1, 2014).

4<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext#back-bib4>
 Garay J, Harris L, Beam M, Zompi S. Global inequity death toll: targeting
global health equity and estimating the burden of inequity. 141st American
Public Health Association Annual Meeting; Boston, MA, USA; Nov 2--6, 2013.
Abstr 291133.
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