Corporations are a major force shaping society and influencing health. Given their size and command over markets, corporations have great power to improve or to worsen population health. Large businesses should be leading the way in improving labour and environmental standards, yet their significant share of the market gives them the power to resist legislation upholding environmental and labour standards. (more…)

Following his involvement in The Lancet’s current series, Nadine Cozens and Rachel Brown quiz Dr Ed Mills on the vital role of medical students in Health and Human rights. An ideal candidate for bringing this subject to light, Dr Mills’ work is focussed on the application of evidence-based decision-making to international health interventions and human rights, specifically concentrating on HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Dr Mills is based at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

At the beginning of our interview with Dr Mills, we realised that our knowledge of global health related human rights issues was little beyond what would be considered normal common sense. The right to health isn’t exactly a topic particularly focused on in UK medical schools, or, if it is, it is skated over in other disciplines such as ethics and medical sociology, or just assumed. So, we asked, why should medical students be interested in human rights?

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Justin Loke
5th year medical student
University of Oxford
justin.loke@green.ox.ac.uk

“Dr. A remembered [him saying], almost to comfort him, “No, they can never get the vein.” The doctor decided to place a central line. It was like placing one “for any other patient,” he said.”(1)

These words may be familiar to many students who have had to turn to their seniors when they reached that embarrassing point when they have failed to place a line or managed to take blood.  Chillingly, this is one of the most common reasons why doctors have been asked to participate in executions.  Lethal injection comprises 97% of the executions in the US since 2000 because other methods of executions are too cruel, and it is increasingly the method used by mobile execution vans in China, which leads nations in numbers of executions.  Medics have been involved with the prescription of the lethal cocktails, putting in of lines, pronunciation of death and some are involved in removal of their organs as well.  Deaths by lethal injection are sold by its proponents as a clean and fail safe method of execution.  There is increasing evidence that it is not.  Angel Diaz was recently executed in Florida.  At post mortem it was found he had 30cm long chemical burns in both antecubital fossae, which suggested that his cannulae were misplaced which would explain why it took him 34 minutes and two sets of injections to die (2).  

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Aoife Singh
Intercalating Medical Student International Health BSc, Centre for Child & Adolescent Health, University of Bristol, Bristol BS6 6JL, UK

Throughout history, war has taken an unacceptable toll on children. They have been killed, injured, orphaned and employed as part of a country’s armed forces. However in today’s world a new and horrific phenomenon is the widespread use of child soldiers.

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Jonathan Currie, Laura Mason, Eleanor Southgate, Yolande Squire
Intercalating Medical Students International Health BSc, Centre for Child & Adolescent Health, University of Bristol, Bristol BS6 6JL, UK

The current HIV epidemic in South Africa stands as one of the most severe in the world. In 2005, 5.5 million people were living with HIV and 320 000 people died from HIV/AIDS, more than 875 lives per day ¹. Moreover, there are no signs of the epidemic reaching a plateau. Stark differences exist in the proportion of men and women affected; young women (aged 15-25 years) are approximately four times more likely to be infected than men.¹

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Lucy Morgan and Rowena Milligan
Intercalating Medical Students, International Health BSc, University of Bristol, Centre for Child and Adolescent Health, Hampton House, Bristol, BS6 6JS. lm3780@bris.ac.uk

Mr A^* fled Sudan for the UK in fear of his life after speaking out against the actions of his government. As a student, he became involved in peaceful protest and campaigned for the rights of black Africans, distributing fliers and posters. As a result government forces entered his home, arrested him and subjected him to inhumane treatment including burning, beating and being drenched with cold water. He was imprisoned for 5 days until he was released, but without the guarantee of his safety. A cousin arranged for him to be taken to the UK. He travelled for nearly three weeks on several different boats, hidden in a tiny space in freezing conditions.

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Dr. Joris Hemelaar
Final year graduate-entry medical student. Magdalen College, Oxford University. joris.hemelaar@medschool.ox.ac.uk

Last month a large-scale clinical trial of a candidate HIV vaccine started in South Africa.¹ The four-year study plans to enrol 3000 HIV-negative sexually active men and women at five sites throughout South Africa, making it the largest African HIV vaccine trial to date. In South Africa, the trial is called Phambili, which means “moving forward” in the Xhosa language.

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Nadia Amokrane, Eleanor Gaff, William Loughborough and Richard Ruberti
Intercalating Medical Students International Health BSc, University of Bristol, Centre for Child & Adolescent Health, Bristol BS6 6JS.Address for correspondence: W Loughborough wl6995@bristol.ac.uk

2005-2015 is the so-called ‘Water for Life’ decade. Access to safe, clean drinking water is a basic provision and a fundamental necessity. However, we are now in the 21st century and 1·1 billion people, the equivalent of 17% of the world’s population, live without access to safe water sources.¹ Consequently a vast number of people are affected by disease.

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Ching Ling Pang
2nd year medical student, St Hilda’s College, Oxford. ching.pang@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

We live in an ageing world, where a progressively larger proportion of the population is over 60 years of age - in 2000, there were approximately 600 million people aged over 60 years. This figure is projected to rise to 1·2 billion by 2025 and 2 billion by 2050.¹ Just over two thirds of older people are living in the developing world and this proportion will increase to 75% by 2025. The fastest growing population in the developed world is in the 80+ age group and the ratio of women to men increases with age.¹ Despite this, physicians and other healthcare professionals continue to routinely fail in the standard of care accorded to elderly patients.

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