International Trade Agreements: Hazards to Health?
International Trade Agreements: Hazards to Health?
复制标题
国际贸易协定:对健康的危害?
DOI:
10.2190/fb79-g25u-dwgk-c3qk
复制
发表时间:
2004
影响因子:
3.4
通讯作者:
J. Brenner
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
E. Shaffer;J. Brenner
Since the 1980s, neoliberal policies have prescribed reducing the role of governments, relying on market forces to organize and provide health care and other vital human services. In this context, international trade agreements increasingly serve as mechanisms to enforce the privatization, deregulation, and decentralization of health care and other services, with important implications for democracy as well as for health. Critics contend that social austerity and “free” trade agreements contribute to the rise in global poverty and economic inequality and instability, and therefore to increased preventable illness and death. Under new agreements through the World Trade Organization that cover vital human services such as health care, water, education, and energy, unaccountable, secret trade tribunals could overrule decisions by democratically elected officials on public financing for national health care systems, licensing and training standards for health professionals, patient safety and quality regulations, occupational safety and health, control of hazardous substances such as tobacco and alcohol, the environment, and affordable access to safe water and sanitation. International negotiations in 2003 in Cancun and in Miami suggested that countervailing views are developing momentum. A concerned health care community has begun to call for a moratorium on trade negotiations on health care and water, and to reinvigorate an alternative vision of universal access to vital services.