By
Jirair Ratevosian on
July 1, 2009
It looks like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is about to take a big step towards lifting the nation’s draconian restrictions denying people living with HIV entry into the United States. The CDC planned to publish a proposed new rule in yesterday’s Federal Register that would remove HIV from the definition of “communicable disease of public health significance.”
The Department of Health and Human Services, CDC’s parent agency, withdrew the proposed rule yesterday morning because they “inadvertently submitted an incomplete version of the proposed regulation.” We’re hopeful that they will publish the complete version this week.
Continue reading “Hopeful Signs on Lifting the HIV Entry Ban”
Posted in AIDS, Health
| Tagged cdc, centers for disease control
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By
Nathaniel Raymond on
June 29, 2009
Thom Hartmann, a national progressive talk show host, today featured on his show a discussion of PHR’s report Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact. A transcript of the feature is expected to be available.
Mr. Hartmann spent several minutes quoting from various areas of the report, and commenting on what he was reading. He made clear his disgust with what the men who agreed to be in the report, who were never charged with any wrongdoing, had been put through. He also addressed the Obama administration’s reluctance to “look back” and bring the people responsible for the torture treatment to justice.
Continue reading “Broken Laws, Broken Lives Discussed on Thom Hartmann Show”
Posted in News Coverage, Torture
| Tagged broken laws broken lives, radio coverage, Thom Hartmann, Torture
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By
Richard Sollom on
June 23, 2009
World Vision Report - Doctors Detained [4:12m]:
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I was recently interviewed about three Sri Lankan physicians who treated civilians and disseminated information on the health crisis in the conflict zone. You can listen to the four-minute interview, above.
When taking the Hippocratic Oath, a doctor makes a promise to his or her patients to “keep them from harm and injustice.” But the Government of Sri Lanka has failed to uphold its own pledge to protect these medical professionals. Instead of protecting the doctors, government authorities have detained them incommunicado and have denied them their right to legal counsel.
Last month, Physicians for Human Rights called on the Sri Lankan government to
release the doctors immediately and to respect their rights to legal counsel and to receive medical care as well as family visits.
Now, more than three weeks after government forces issued their detention orders, Thangamutha Sathiyamoorthy, MD, and V. Shanmugarajah, MD, remain in police custody at the Central Investigating Division (CID) in Colombo, while Thurairaja Vartharajah, MD, is reportedly receiving treatment in a Colombo hospital.
Continue reading “Sri Lankan Physicians Detained for Adhering to Medical Ethics”
Posted in Colleagues at Risk, Conflict, General Human Rights, Health, Podcast
| Tagged Additional Protocol II, BBC, Central Investigating Division, CID, Darma Wanninayake, detention, geneva convention, Government of Sri Lanka, Hippocratic Oath, human rights, International Code of Medical Ethics, international humanitarian law, LTTE, Mahinda Samarasinghe, medical ethics, military, physicians, Prevention of Terrorism Act, PTA, Sri Lanka, Tamil Tigers, The Times, University Teachers for Human Rights, WMA, world medical association
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By
Pete Witzler on
June 23, 2009
With hearings and debates scheduled in Congress in the coming weeks global AIDS funding is in the news once again. Health Action AIDS Campaign Director Pat Daoust responded to recent coverage in the Boston Globe with a hard-hitting letter to the editor. She strongly rebuts the notion that “Africa is covered in HIV/AIDS money:”
[T]hey are turning away patients in need of treatment because of stagnating funding levels. With drug stocks dwindling, they run the very real risk of returning to the days when one member of a family received treatment as their spouses and children left clinics empty-handed and were left to die.
Continue reading “We Don’t Have to Choose between HIV/AIDS Programs and Other Global Health Initiatives”
Posted in AIDS, Take Action
| Tagged africa, barack obama, global health, pat daoust, PEPFAR, peter mugyenyi, sarah kalloch, us senate
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By
Pete Witzler on
June 17, 2009
Last month President Obama released his detailed budget for Fiscal year 2010. Unfortunately, his budget falls short of what is needed to reach goals outlined in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) reauthorization bill PHR members helped pass last year.
We need your help to make sure Congress and President Obama fulfill their commitment to fight AIDS and other global health crises. This month PHR members are meeting with their member of Congress during their July 4th recess to ask for full PEPFAR funding.
Continue reading “Ask your Member of Congress to Fully Fund Global AIDS Programs”
Posted in AIDS, Health, Take Action
| Tagged barack obama, PEPFAR, peter mugyenyi, presidents emergency plan for aids relief, Uganda, us congress
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By
Richard Sollom on
June 17, 2009
PHR received this letter of thanks from Binayak Sen and his wife Ilina following his release from detention:
Our heartfelt thanks to all those who associated themselves with the nationwide and international campaign for the release of Dr. Binayak Sen. The outcome of the campaign has vindicated our stand and is a glowing affirmation to the voice of the people.
We thank especially all who took part in the demonstrations and satyagraha [non-violent resistance] in Raipur and other cities, and the distinguished legal voices that upheld our cause at different times. We also thank the many friends who offered us their warmth and friendship in bleak times.
Continue reading “Letter of Thanks from Binayak Sen, MD, in India”
Posted in Colleagues at Risk, Custody, General Human Rights, Health
| Tagged binayak sen, chhattisgarh, ilina sen, india, Raipur, satyagraha
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By
Nathaniel Raymond on
June 14, 2009
Perhaps the most interesting revelation in Jane Mayer’s latest New Yorker article on the CIA and US torture policy comes as an aside, towards the end. Ongoing investigations by PHR and others, including investigative journalists, are discovering disturbing connections between American Psychological Association officials involved in developing the ethics standards governing psychologists’ participation in interrogations and those involved in overseeing and facilitating the Bush administration’s CIA and US military programs of torture. Firedoglake blogger Marcy Wheeler has honed in on the passage in her coverage of Mayer’s piece:
In April, Panetta fired all the C.I.A.’s contract interrogators, including the former military psychologists who appear to have designed the most brutal interrogation techniques: James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. The two men, who ran a consulting company, Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, had recommended that interrogators apply to detainees theories of “learned helplessness” that were based on experiments with abused dogs. The firm’s principals reportedly billed the agency a thousand dollars a day for their services. “We saved some money in the deal, too!” Panetta said. (Remarkably, a month after Obama took office the C.I.A. had signed a fresh contract with the firm.)
According to ProPublica, the investigative reporting group, Mitchell and Jessen’s firm, which in 2007 had a hundred and twenty people on its staff, recently closed its offices, in Spokane, Washington. One employee was Deuce Martinez, a former C.I.A. interrogator in the black-site program; Joseph Matarazzo, a former president of the American Psychological Association, was on the company’s board. (According to Kirk Hubbard, the former head of the C.I.A.’s research and analysis division, Matarazzo served on an agency professional-standards board during the time the interrogation program was set up, but was not consulted about the interrogations.)
Continue reading “New Yorker: Former APA President Worked with CIA and on Board of Mitchell and Jessen”
Posted in Custody, Torture
| Tagged american psychological association, apa, barack obama, bruce jessen, cia, deuce matarazzo, firedoglake, james mitchell, jane mayer, joseph matarazzo, kirk hubbard, learned helplessness, leon panetta, marcy wheeler, mitchell jessen associates, new yorker, pens task force, propublica, sere, spokane, spokesman review, washington
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By
Ben Greenberg on
June 14, 2009
Jane Mayer has published a new article in the The New Yorker today on US torture policy. Mayer’s article centers around her interview with Leon Panetta, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, under the Obama administration. The article provides an overview of the Obama Administration’s approaches towards and retreats from pursuing accountability for those involved in overseeing and facilitating the Bush administration’s CIA and US military programs of torture. Near the article’s close, Mayer quotes Nathaniel Raymond, Director of PHR’s Campaign Against Torture:
Without a thorough public investigation, it’s difficult to assess the truth behind such contradictory accusations. “Everyone says, ‘It’s over, it’s known,’” Nathaniel Raymond, who works with the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights, told me. “But what is known? We still don’t know how many detainees were in the black sites, or who they were. We don’t fully know the White House’s role, or the C.I.A.’s role. We need a full accounting, especially as it relates to health professionals.” The recently released Justice Department memos, he noted, contain numerous references to C.I.A. medical personnel participating in coercive interrogation sessions. “They were the designers, the legitimizers, and the implementers,” Raymond said. “This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history. We need answers.”
Posted in Custody, News Coverage, Torture
| Tagged central intelligence agency, cia, jane mayer, leon panetta, medical ethics, nathaniel raymond
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By
Pat Daoust, MSN, RN on
June 12, 2009
On Tuesday, June 9, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held confirmation hearings for Dr. Eric Goosby to serve as Ambassador at Large and US Global AIDS Coordinator. That same day, nearly 6,000 people living with HIV around the world died — as they do every day — due to a lack of access to life-saving treatments.
The stakes are high and the tasks at hand enormous. Dr. Goosby is well qualified to lead the nation’s global AIDS efforts, and the Senate should act swiftly to confirm his nomination so that he can quickly bring the full measure of his expertise and experience to bear and provide needed leadership for the nation’s extensive global HIV/AIDS portfolio.
Continue reading “Keeping Our Promise on AIDS”
Posted in AIDS, Health
| Tagged africa, ambassador at large, barack obama, eric goosby, lancet, PEPFAR, peter mugyenyi, senate foreign relations committee, us global aids coordinator, us global health intiative
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By
Emily Bancroft on
June 11, 2009
Janvier Yubahwe, a medical intern at Ruhengeri District Hospital in northern Rwanda, starts his day around 6:30 a.m. with a 15 minute walk to the hospital from his house. Recently, photographer Greg Kendall-Ball and I spent the day at the hospital with Janvier and his colleagues, learning more about the life of a doctor in Rwanda.
The sun rises early here, so it was already bright and clear when we left Janvier’s house and made our way to the hospital with the hundreds of other people also walking to the market or to their work places. The volcanoes of the Virunga Mountains rose up behind us, and the dirt roads were black with volcanic rock — a contrast to the dark orange-red soil that characterizes much of the rest of this region.
The walk to Ruhengeri Hospital on Monday morning.(Greg Kendall-Ball)
Continue reading “Rwandan Medical Intern Seeks Progress in Healthcare”
Posted in AIDS, Health
| Tagged africa, gregg kendall-ball, h1n1 flu, health workers, human resources for health strategic plan, janvier yubahwe, maternal mortality, ministry of health, national referral hospitals, ruhengeri district hospital, Rwanda
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