ABSTRACT
Q: It appears that the terms “human rights” and “ethics” have become synonymous in their practical application in the global health arena. In your recent article featured in the Hastings Report, ‘The Dread Disease: Cancer in the Developing World,’ you argue that “global cancer disparities illustrate a collective failure to actualize the universal human right to access an adequate standard of health, and these disparities in cancer care and mortality demonstrate some of the most glaring social inequalities in health.” Do you think that human rights are, on some level, a fulfillment of a search for a common morality (once deemed too abstract or aspirational for any practical purposes)? Or could ethicists who expound on “global health” issues be inclined to carve out a distinct niche for themselves, that is, outside of the rights-based frameworks?
