<div class="gmail_quote">
<div style="WORD-WRAP: break-word">
<div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="WORD-WRAP: break-word">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote"><span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:draphael@yorku.ca" target="_blank">draphael@yorku.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Mr. Paul Taylor</font> <br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Health Editor</font> <br>
<font face="sans-serif" size="2">Globe and Mail</font> <br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Toronto Ontario</font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Dear Mr. Taylor;</font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">I read with interest your report today on the biggest health stories of the year in today's Globe and Mail.</font> <br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/GAM.20081226.LDOSES26/TPStory/TPComment" target="_blank">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/GAM.20081226.LDOSES26/TPStory/TPComment</a></font> <br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">I think you missed it. The main story is that you were -- again -- able to go another year reporting thousands of lines of drivel while neglecting any number of important and relevant health stories.</font> <br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">I'll bring just one to your attention. </font><br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">"Inequities are killing people on grand scale, reports WHO's Commission"</font> <br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr29/en/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr29/en/index.html</a></font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">See below...</font> <br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">For others I would suggest about 1200 articles that appeared in 2008 in Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the British Medical Journal and the International Journal of Epidemiology, all of which provided extensive documentation of how living conditions -- not the claptrap you report with such cuteness in your columns -- are the primary determinants of Canadian's health.</font> <br>
<br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">I expect better from Canada's National Newspaper.</font> <br><br><font face="sans-serif" size="2">Happy New Year!</font> <br><font face="sans-serif" size="2"><br>Dennis Raphael, PhD<br>
Professor, School of Health Policy and Management<br>York University<br></font><font face="sans-serif" size="2">-----------------------------------------------------------------------</font>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Press release</font> </p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="6"><b>Inequities are killing people on grand scale, reports WHO's Commission</b></font> </p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">28 August 2008 | GENEVA -- A child born in a Glasgow, Scotland suburb can expect a life 28 years shorter than another living only 13 kilometres away. A girl in Lesotho is likely to live 42 years less than another in Japan. In Sweden, the risk of a woman dying during pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 17 400; in Afghanistan, the odds are 1 in 8. Biology does not explain any of this. Instead, the differences between - and within - countries result from the social environment where people are born, live, grow, work and age. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">These "social determinants of health" have been the focus of a three-year investigation by an eminent group of policy makers, academics, former heads of state and former ministers of health. Together, they comprise the World Health Organization's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Today, the Commission presents its findings to the WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan.</font> </p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">"(The) toxic combination of bad policies, economics, and politics is, in large measure responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible," the Commissioners write in <i>Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health.</i> "Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale." </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">"Health inequity really is a matter of life and death," said Dr Chan today while welcoming the Report and congratulating the Commission. "But health systems will not <i>naturally</i> gravitate towards equity. Unprecedented leadership is needed that compels all actors, including those beyond the health sector, to examine their impact on health. Primary health care, which integrates health in all of government's policies, is the best framework for doing so." </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Sir Michael Marmot, Commission Chair said: "Central to the Commission's recommendations is creating the conditions for people to be empowered, to have freedom to lead flourishing lives. Nowhere is lack of empowerment more obvious than in the plight of women in many parts of the world. Health suffers as a result. Following our recommendations would dramatically improve the health and life chances of billions of people."</font> .... THIS WAS POSTED EARLIER IN PHA-EXCH</p>
</blockquote></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div>