[M. Chan's speech, highlighting the parts that have to do more with economics and the re-distribution of wealth and disease than with the things WHO generally concerns itself with. ]
Address to Sixty-second World Health Assembly
Geneva, Switzerland
18 May 2009
Concern over flu pandemic justified
Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization
Mister President, honourable ministers, excellencies, distinguished delegates, Dr Mahler, ladies and gentlemen,
Over the past three decades, the world has, on average, been growing richer. People have, on average, been enjoying longer and healthier lives.
But these encouraging trends hide a brutal reality. Today, differences in income levels, in opportunities, and in health status, within and between countries, are greater than at any time in recent history.
Our world is dangerously out of balance, and most especially so in matters of health. The current economic downturn will diminish wealth and health, but the impact will be greatest in the developing world.
Human society has always been characterized by inequities. History has long had its robber-barons and its Robin Hoods. The difference today is that these inequities, especially in access to health care, have become so deadly.
The world can be grateful that leaders from 189 countries endorsed the Millennium Declaration and its Goals as a shared responsibility. These Goals are a profoundly important way to introduce greater fairness in this world.
Populations all around the world can be grateful that health officials are recommitting themselves to primary health care. This is the surest route to greater equity in access to health care.
Public health can be grateful for backing from the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. I agree entirely with the findings. The great gaps in health outcomes are not random. Much of the blame for the essentially unfair way our world works rests at the policy level.
Time and time again, health is a peripheral issue when the policies that shape this world are set. When health policies clash with prospects for economic gain, economic interests trump health concerns time and time again. Time and time again, health bears the brunt of short-sighted, narrowly focused policies made in other sectors.
Equity in health matters. It matters in life-and-death ways. The HIV/AIDS epidemic taught us this, in a most visible and measurable way.
We see just how much equity matters when crises arise.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The world is facing multiple crises, on multiple fronts.
Last year, our imperfect world delivered, in short order, a fuel crisis, a food crisis, and a financial crisis. It also delivered compelling evidence that the impact of climate change has been seriously underestimated.
These crises come at a time of radically increased interdependence among nations, their financial markets, economies, and trade systems. All of these crises are global, and all will hit developing countries and vulnerable populations the hardest. All threaten to leave this world even more dangerously out of balance.
All will show the consequences of decades of failure to invest in health systems, decades of failure to consider the importance of equity, and decades of blind faith that mere economic growth is the be-all, end-all, cure-for-all.
It is not.
The consequences of flawed policies show no mercy and make no exceptions on the basis of fair play. As we have seen, the financial crisis has been highly contagious, moving rapidly from one country to another, and from one sector of the economy to many others.
Even countries that managed their economies well, did not purchase toxic assets, and did not take excessive financial risks are suffering the consequences. Likewise, the countries that contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions will be the first and hardest hit by climate change.
And now we have another great global contagion on our doorstep: the prospect of the first influenza pandemic of this century.
[snip]
hat-tip Pixie for the editing, and Sand for the link.
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