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Solomon R Benatar

Publications and source records attributed to Solomon R Benatar.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Human rights in the biotechnology era 1.

BACKGOUND: The concept of Human Rights has become the modern civilising standard to which all should aspire and indeed attain. DISCUSSION: In an era characterised by widening disparities in health and human rights across the world and spectacular advances in biotechnology it is necessary to reflect on the extent to which human rights considerations are selectively applied for the benefit of the most privileged people. Attention is drawn particularly to sub-Saharan Africa as a marginalised region at risk of further marginalisation if the power associated with the new biotechnology is not used more wisely than power has been used in the past. To rectify such deficiencies it is proposed that the moral agenda should be broadened and at the very least the concept of rights should be more closely integrated with duties SUMMARY: New forms of power being unleashed by biotechnology will have to be harnessed and used with greater wisdom than power has been used in the past. Widening disparities in the world are unlikely to be diminished merely by appealing to human rights. We recommend that a deeper understanding is required of the underlying causes of such disparities and that the moral discourse should be extended beyond human rights language.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

The HIV/AIDS pandemic: a sign of instability in a complex global system.

Intense scientific work on HIV/AIDS has led to the development of effective combination drug therapies and there is hope that effective vaccines will soon be produced. However, the majority of people with HIV/AIDS in the world are not benefiting from such advances because of extreme poverty. This article focuses on the pandemic as a reflection of a complex trajectory of social and economic forces that create widening global disparities in wealth and health and concomitant ecological niches for the emergence of new infectious diseases. While the biomedical approach to HIV/AIDS is necessary, has prolonged the lives of many individuals and could offer much at the level of population health, it cannot, in isolation, improve the health of populations. To achieve the latter will require understanding and addressing the deeper social causes of pandemics. Broadening the discourse on ethics to include public health ethics and the ethics of international relations could contribute to reducing the impact of the pandemic and to preventing the emergence of new infectious diseases in the future.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1998

Editorial ethics.

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Biomedical Research↗