HEALTH: Sick of Globalisation

HEALTH: Sick of Globalisation
Kintto Lucas

CUENCA, Ecuador, Jul 21 (IPS) - Alternative reports on global health, presented at the second People's Health Assembly in Ecuador this week, question the free-market, neoliberal economic model and view it as the cause of many of the health problems facing humanity today.

These include the indiscriminate use of toxic products in agriculture, pollution caused by the oil industry, the consumption of transgenic crops, the destruction of the urban environment by pollution, and the commercialisation of health services.

The reports by the Global Health Watch and the Observatorio Latinoamericano de Salud see a healthy life as a fundamental human right, the enjoyment of which depends on economic, political and social factors.

The Global Health Watch is a broad collaboration of public health experts, non-governmental organisations, civil society activists, community groups, health workers and academics.