News from Harvard Medical, Dental, & Public Health Schools

Genetics: Building Proper Brain May Depend On DNA Cutting And Pasting Public Health: HSPH Celebrates 50th Anniversary Of Human Rights Anesthesia Research: Findings Suggest New Approaches to Easing Chronic Pain Research Briefs: Filamin1 Gene Needed For Nerve Migration in Developing Brain Feature of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome May Be Inherited MCH Knockout Mice Lose Appetite, Speed Metabolism Exercise Can Also Strengthen the Elderly White Cells Use Their Arms to Slow Down, Make Turns Medical Library : Countway Construction Moves to Central Atrium Bulletin: Appointments to Full And Endowed Professorships Panel Says Affirmative Action Works Honors & Advances News Briefs Blackburn Named to S. Daniel Abraham Chair The Dental School Fetes New Faculty Forum: New Course Explores Future of Information Technology in Health Care Front page: Go back to the Focus front page Current Issue: Go back to the first page of the current Focus

January 8, 1999 PUBLIC HEALTH HSPH Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Human Rights Declaration A half century after its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands as a vital testament to the worldwide determination that all people be treated with dignity and fairness. And despite weaknesses that have become apparent in that time--principally the lack of an effective means to enforce the declaration's principles internationally--the very existence of a document that enumerates the fundamental rights of humanity "is itself a contribution to the unification of humanity." These were among the observations made by Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia in his keynote address at a 50th anniversary celebration of the declaration, held December 14 by the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. James Ware, then acting dean of HSPH, presents a framed copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Justice Michael Kirby of Australia at the celebration of the declaration's 50th anniversary. Photo by Kent Dayton Article 25 of the document states that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services...." Kirby, a former U.N. special representative for human rights for Cambodia, said the inclusion of health and medical care as basic human rights marked a radical departure from precursors such as the Magna Carta, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. "The Universal Declaration has also encouraged the culture of human rights," he added. "It has given rise to an unending effort to expand and recreate the boundaries of human rights. It has stimulated the movement for gender equality, multicultural diversity, an end to sexual oppression, the defense of the environment and the self-determination of peoples. Once ideas such as those ... were set loose, they were unlikely to remain imprisoned in the words adopted 50 years ago." Tribute to Mann Participants in the HSPH event paid tribute to Jonathan Mann, the former professor of health and human rights and founding director of the Bagnoud Center, who died in a September plane crash en route to a WHO conference in Geneva. (Mann had left Harvard in January to become dean of public health at Allegheny University of Health Sciences in Philadelphia.) In his keynote, Kirby praised Mann's foresight and determination in bringing to light the human rights aspects of public health problems such as AIDS. He noted that Mann was among the first to recognize--and to vigorously promote on the international stage--the idea that "paradoxically, the most effective ways of preventing the spread of HIV is by protecting the human rights of those most at risk." The paradox is that traditional responses to public health crises often involve the derogation of individual rights. But with HIV, in the absence of a vaccine, the only means of limiting the epidemic is through education and behavior modification, he explained. Because human behaviors related to identity and personal pleasure are notoriously difficult to change through force of law, the only effective path to change involves empowering the marginalized groups at greatest risk for AIDS: homosexuals, sex workers, IV drug users, and--in developing countries--women. A crucial piece of Mann's legacy from the time he spent at the WHO is the agency's adoption of this view, and implementation of prevention programs based upon it, Kirby added. At the December event, the Countess Albina du Boisrouvray, a Swiss human rights activist and founder and benefactor of the Bagnoud Center, which is named for her son, presented a plaque that will hang in an HSPH conference room dedicated to Jonathan Mann. The audience also heard panel presentations on "A Human Rights Perspective on HIV/AIDS and Drug Policies." Panelists were Helene Gayle, director of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention of the Centers for Disease Control; Stephen Marks, director of U.N. studies at Columbia University in New York; and Thomas Zeltner, director of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. --Tom Reynolds