Virtual Library

This article explores conditions under which global norms change. I use a case study in which the original interpretation of an international agreement on intellectual property rights was modified to address demands for improved access to affordable AIDS drugs. Conventional theories that focus on international negotiations cannot fully account for the events in this case. Drawing on the theory of recursivity and insights from the literature on diffusion, I suggest that shifts in global norms occur through reactive diffusion of policies across states. Experiences accumulated in this ongoing process of reinvention eventually lead to a new, globally accepted reinterpretation of the original obligation.

We hear plenty about the widening income gap between the rich and the poor in America and about the expanding distance dividing the haves and the have-nots. But when detailing the many things that the poor have not, we often overlook the most critical their health. The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. In nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, David Ansell has witnessed the lives behind these devastating statistics firsthand. In 'The Death Gap', he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients. While the contrasts and disparities in Chicago's communities are particularly stark, the death gap is truly a nationwide epidemic as Ansell shows, there is a thirty-five-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and wealthiest and the poorest and sickest American neighborhoods. It doesn't need to be this way; such divisions are not inevitable. Ansell calls out the social and cultural arguments that have been raised as ways of explaining or excusing these gaps, and he lays bare the structural violence the racism, economic exploitation, and discrimination that is really to blame. Inequality is a disease, Ansell argues, and we need to treat and eradicate it as we would any major illness. To do so, he outlines a vision that will provide the foundation for a healthier nation for all.

We have been told that development is working: that the global South is catching up to the North, that poverty has been cut in half over the past thirty years, and will be eradicated by 2030. It’s a comforting tale, and one that is endorsed by the world’s most powerful governments and corporations. But is it true?

Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined.

What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem: poverty doesn’t just exist, it has been created.

Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms. The aid  narrative hides the deep patterns of wealth extraction that cause poverty and inequality in the first place: rigged trade deals, tax evasion, land grabs and the costs associated with climate change. The Divide tracks the evolution of this system, from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s to the international debt regime, which has allowed a handful of rich countries to effectively control economic policies in the rest of the world.

Because poverty is a political problem, it requires political solutions. The Divide offers a range of revelatory answers, but also explains that something much more radical is needed – a revolution in our way of thinking. Drawing on pioneering research, detailed analysis and years of first-hand experience, The Divide is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change.

Outlines recommendations for preventing the next global pandemic, drawing on the examples of epidemics ranging from smallpox and AIDS to SARS and Ebola to outline specific measures for appropriate spending, communication, and innovation. --Publisher.

Many of us have concerns about the effects of climate change on Earth, but we often overlook the essential issue of human health. This book addresses that oversight and enlightens readers about the most important aspect of one of the greatest challenges of our time.

The global environment is under massive stress from centuries of human industrialization. The projections regarding climate change for the next century and beyond are grim. The impact this will have on human health is tremendous, and we are only just now discovering what the long-term outcomes may be.

By weighing in from a physician’s perspective, Jay Lemery and Paul Auerbach clarify the science, dispel the myths, and help readers understand the threats of climate change to human health. No better argument exists for persuading people to care about climate change than a close look at its impacts on our physical and emotional well-being.

The need has never been greater for a grounded, informative, and accessible discussion about this topic. In this groundbreaking book, the authors not only sound the alarm but address the health issues likely to arise in the coming years.

Between one-fifth and a third of people who are transgender have been refused treatment by a medical provider due to their gender identity. Yet, we know little about the factors that shape public opinion on this issue. We present results from a nationally representative survey experiment (N = 4,876) that examines how common justifications issued by providers for the denial of healthcare, and the race and gender identity of the person being denied care, intersect to shape public opinion concerning the acceptability of treatment refusal. We find that religious objections are viewed as less acceptable compared to a medical justification, in this case, inadequate training. However, the difference between religious objections and inadequate training is larger when the person being denied healthcare is White or Asian than when the person is Black or Latinx. Analysis of open-ended responses indicates the modest effect of doctor’s rationale on attitudes toward treatment refusal with respect to Black and Latinx patients is partially attributable to a racialized, free-market logic. Respondents were more likely to advocate for a doctor’s fundamental right to refuse service when evaluating Black and Latinx patients compared to White patients. We discuss the implications of these findings for intersectional approaches to trans studies and future public opinion research.

Testimony of Dr. Renslow Sherer, Cook County Hospital, and Phil Wilson, AIDS Project LA, at the First White House Conference on AIDS.

Sociologists have long recognized that social problems do not derive solely from objective conditions but from a process of collective definition. At the core of some social issues are framing competitions, struggles over the production of ideas and meanings. This article examines competing cultural meanings about the fat body. Through frame analysis of organizational materials, I map the contested field of obesity and document three cultural frames—medical frame, social justice frame, and market choice frame—as represented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), and the food industry group the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), respectively. Using the “framing matrix,” I explore each frame's key signature elements and discuss its social and cultural significance. Notably, each frame leads to different outcomes for social equality and how society thinks about fat bodies, health, and public policy.