PRESS RELEASE
23rd April 2008
Is Neoliberalism bad for health around the world?
Professor (Emeritus) and Member of the Research Institute for Human Rights
and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University critically considers the World Health Organization's and the United Nations' involvement in the widening divide between healthcare in developed and less developed countries
The World Health Organisation was initially created to play a key role in promoting health as a basic human right, but since 1988 it has been increasingly sidelined by various global trade and competition rules. The new book SACRIFICING THE W.H.O. TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER offers a series of proposals on alternative mechanisms for mediating global trade fairly, without the corruptive neoliberal imprint.
The author of "SACRIFICING THE W.H.O. TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER" is Théodore H MacDonald, Professor Emeritus and Member at the Research Institute for Human Rights and Social Justice, London Metropolitan University. He is also a Consultant for the World Health Organization, International Development Agency and Non-government Organizations in developing countries and formerly Director of Postgraduate Studies in Health, Brunel University. In the book, he provides explicit examples of how various UN agencies, but especially the WHO, became privatised with the collaboration of agencies such as the IMF, the World Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
SACRIFICING THE W.H.O. TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER offers enlightening reading for everyone interested in international law, human rights, global health, public health and health promotion. Public health and health promotion professionals, including international healthcare organisations, care agencies, and international charities will find the analysis illuminating. It is also of great interest to policy makers and shapers in communities and government, political activists and all those with an interest in equality and globalisation.
'Théodore has chosen the hard life of a persistent fighter of conscience, with his powerful pen, against super-power chauvinism, socially irresponsible neoliberalism, and indecisive leadership in the UN and many of its agencies. His writings deal critically and extensively with many layers of social injustice as they impact on the health and rights of peoples in the third world. Analytically scrupulous. His rich experience, gained in working as a doctor in many third world countries and interacting with different cultures, has obviously opened such important and credible intellectual resources to him. These he employs to equip social advocates, and the suffering peoples themselves, to understand the political, sociocultural and economic determinants of the social injustices they suffer. This book is...analytically scrupulous... timely and appropriate.'
Mathura P Shrestha, President, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Nepal, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1985, in the Foreword
SACRIFICING THE W.H.O. TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER is now available at Radcliffe Publishing:
http://www.radcliffe-oxford.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=1846192528.
Théodore H MacDonald is available for interview about SACRIFICING THE W.H.O. TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER. To arrange or to request a review copy, please contact Rebecca at the address below.
Notes to Editors: Radcliffe Publishing has an extensive portfolio of books, journals and resources for the health care market and have been awarded contracts from key organizations such as Department of Health and Royal College of General Practitioners
Contact details:
Rebecca Vickerstaff
Promotions Manager
Radcliffe Publishing Ltd
18 Marcham Road
Abingdon
Oxon. OX14 1AA
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1235 528820
Fax: +44 (0)1235 528830
Email: rvickerstaff@radcliffemed.com