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Pollution and Impact on Health
Toxic waste is generating serious health problems in Latin America, according to the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO). In the past, major hazardous waste problems resided in industrialized countries but transnationals have now set up in developing countries due to cheap labour, the lack of controls on social and environmental impacts, abundant natural resources and a favourable political and economic climate for foreign investment. These transnationals are responsible for a host of ecological disasters. All over Latin America there are high levels of ground contamination by heavy metals and pesticides in mining areas and farmlands. Similarly, in rivers like the Amazon, which cuts across Peru and Brazil, the levels of mercury contamination have totally surpassed acceptable levels. Industrialized nations are responsible for exporting polluting materials, particularly those produced by the petrochemical industry, to Latin America and another issue is the development of technologies in Latin American countries which are no longer utilized in more developed areas. Mexico and Brazil, for example, now have the technology to produce pesticides which are no longer made in industrialized countries because of environmental concerns, and sell them to other developing nations. Mexico is one of only three countries that still produces DDT. 30% of pesticides sold by transnationals to developing countries are banned in industrialized countries.
Deteriorating Health Care Systems
In the 1980s, economic globalisation led to profound changes in many developing countries, including extensive social policy reforms. The IMF and the World Bank encouraged reduction in public spending, often tying this requirement to debt relief. In Latin America, budget cutbacks in the public sector have opened the door for increased private sector activity in health care. The provision of health care services has deteriorated all over Latin America as a result. The World Bank has, for several years, encouraged and funded the involvement of US-managed care companies in Latin America, despite the recognised failures of managed care in the States. This has prompted protests and strikes all over Latin America in El Salvador health care workers held a nine-month long strike in 2003 against the health care privatisation scheme of President Francisco Flores. Flores was forced to accept a plan for national health care reform that includes representatives of all sectors of Salvadoran society, including the workers and their trade unions.
The Pharmaceutical Industry
Only 10% of global health research is devoted to 90% of world diseases. However, the pharmaceutical industry's profit margins are the highest of any industry and its wealth is growing rapidly, jumping 20% between 2001 and 2002. While the big pharmaceutical companies (Big Pharma) spend lavishly on marketing to push their wares in the wealthy west, increasingly medicalising our lives (shyness is now Social Anxiety Disorder and can be treated with Seroxat), tropical diseases which kill millions of people unable to pay for drugs are virtually ignored. In fact, one third of the world's people cannot afford drugs. How can Big Pharma continue to convince rich consumers that we need their wares? They spend more on lobbying politicians and regulatory bodies than any other industry, thereby helping to convince medical professionals and other bodies that their products are legitimate.
Patenting of and Access to Drugs
Industry lobbyists are pushing for wider patent protection under TRIPS (the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement). If they are successful, the cost of drugs in some countries could increase by 200%. Similarly, these Big Pharma lobbyists are pushing for increased patenting rights under the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement (FTAA), threatening to further restrict public access to drugs in Latin America. Powerful pharmaceutical transnationals want to ensure that generic drugs cannot be produced (e.g. paracetamol for example would be branded by a particular company and only sold under that brand) and that all drugs are only to be sold in pharmacies. This would mean that manufactured drugs would become even more inaccessible for millions around the world and that the 80% of the rural population in the world that uses medicinal plants for health purposes would no longer have the right to do so. Big Pharma essentially want to guarantee the right of multinationals to apply monopolizing patents on living organisms and to stop medicinal plants being distributed freely.
LATIN AMERICA
Ecovida
Niton Deza, the president of this Peruvian NGO will be one of the guest speakers during Latin America Week.
Latin American Health Network
In May 2002, The Peoples Health Movement (PHM) was invited by the World Health Organization to participate in the first Technical briefing session at the World Health Assembly, organised by the WHO-Civil Society Initiative and to present the Peoples Health Charter. Shortly after, the Spanish-speaking participants, mostly from Latin America, set up an electronic list serve to continue to share with one another. It is called REDLATINAMERICANASALUD or Latin American Health Network. Many people in Latin America, in those countries that had representation at the PHA, have been involved in discussions about the event, and especially about the People's Charter for Health. One significant result of some of these activities and discussions, is that health activists have decided to work on building awareness of the effects of the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) on the health of the people.
IRELAND
Community Worker's Co-op
Community Worker's Co-op are campaigning around health, particularly linking ill-health and poverty and inequality.
Institute of Public Health
The aim of the Institute of Public Health in Ireland is to improve health on the island of Ireland by working to combat health inequalities and influence public policies in favour of health
CAMPAIGNS
Friends of the Earth campaign on oil, mining and gas. Also details various Latin Americas campaigns.
www.nodirtygold.org/home.cfm
Around the world, mine-affected communities, grassroots organizations, and national and international organizations are working to end dirty gold mining practices. This campaign seeks to support these efforts and to collaborate with other like-minded organizations.
www.themillionsignaturecampaign.org
Since the Alma Ata declaration in 1978, responses were promising. However, the spirit of Alma Ata and the idea of Health For All has been under attack by anti-health, anti-poor policies, reemerging and new diseases, new challenges and above all by efforts to put private profit over public health. In the current international health crisis, it is more essential to reaffirm and implement the principles and strategies of Alma Ata.
Join this march on the Internet - THE MILLION SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN- to revive the principles and strategies of ALMA ATA.
Join this march to endorse the PEOPLE'S CHARTER FOR HEALTH, the largest consensus document on health (since Alma Ata and building on its foundations), endorsed during the PEOPLES HEALTH ASSEMBLY, a historic summit held in 2000.
This signature campaign, initiated by the People's Health Movement and the International People's Health Council, is being endorsed by ordinary people from various walks of life and organisations, institutions, peoples associations and others working for a just world. We hope this campaign will catch the attention of the WHO, UNICEF, other UN bodies, social and political organisations, policy makers, governments and others. It is one more step towards making health for all a reality.
UK AND EUROPEAN ORGANISATIONS
USEFUL INFORMATION
INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENTS
US ORGANISATIONS
HealthWrights is a non-profit organization committed to advancing the health, basic rights, social equality, and self-determination of disadvantaged persons and groups. We believe that health for all people is only possible in a global society where the guiding principles are sharing, mutual assistance, and respect for cultural and individual differences. (US)