Title: APHA Network on Global Health
Author:
Section/SPIG: International Health
Issue Date:
How does the global economy affect health status and disparities in health status, public health systems and policy, access to coverage within private and public health care systems, occupational health and safety, injury control, environmental health, and access to pharmaceuticals and to safe water, and social and economic equality? What do international trade agreements have to do with public health?
The APHA Network on Globalization and Public Health will address these issues at a town hall meeting at the APHA Annual Meeting on November 16 from 2 to 4 p.m. in San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. The IH Section participates actively in the Network. In addition to brief presentations, there will be networking with research and advocacy groups, members of international public health associations, and observers from the international World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. The Network will also help sponsor a news conference and other events related to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), with the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH). APHA members are invited to help CPATH plan a hearing on health and trade at the FTAA meeting on November 19 in Miami.
APHA has been actively involved in support of its 2001 resolution which opposes including health care, water, and other vital human services in international trade agreements. Along with the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH) and the American Nurses Association, APHA alerted members of Congress in July that smaller scale nation-to-nation trade agreements were setting dangerous precedents for international agreements such as FTAA. The letter, which was circulated to the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Sherrod Brown, explained that U.S. agreements with Singapore and Chile will:
- impede access to life-saving medicines, by allowing patents to be extended beyond the usual 20-year term, and hindering early access to generic drugs;
- ease the terms of trade on tobacco;
- open the door to further privatization and deregulation of vital human services ; and
- allow trade tribunals rather than elected officials and regulators to decide whether basic public health protections are barriers to trade.
The letter urges Congress to advocate for trade agreements that exclude vital human services such as health care and water, that improve access to life-saving medications, and that do not threaten efforts to reduce exposure to dangerous substances. The CPATH Web site, <www.cpath.org>, provides additional background information on economic globalization and health.
--Ellen R. Shaffer, e-mail: ershaffer@cpath.org