HRSJ professor wins first prize for book

Dr Theodore MacDonald, an Honorary Professor in Global Human Rights at the Human Rights and Social Justice research unit (HRSJ) at London Metropolitan University has won first prize in the Medical Journalists’ Association Open Book Awards.

His book The Global Human Right to Health: Dream or Possibility? won the category: Health Book for the General Reader. He received a certificate and a cheque for £500 at the awards ceremony in Foyles Bookshop, London.

Speaking of the book two of the judges, authors Janette Marshall and Cecil Helman said: ‘Breathtaking in its breadth of vision and scope, this book provides penetrating insight into the often detrimental impact of globalisation on human health. It deals in depth with major contemporary issues like Aids, global warming and child poverty.’

Professor McDonald has a background in medicine and teaching in some of the world’s poorest nations and has been involved with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). His main concern is international development and inequity between Western and Developing countries something that this book covers in depth. The Global Right to Human Health is based on what the Charter of the UN states about health as a basic human right. Professor Macdonald argues that the major causes of ill-health are not bacteria and viruses, or even war and natural disasters, but poverty. If the immensely complex problems of global inequities in wealth could be solved, the health inequities would largely vanish.

In the book, published by Radcliffe last year, Professor Macdonald cites Auden: ‘We must love one another, or die.’ He adds to that: ‘My hope in writing these books is that they actually work and help us all to create a fairer world… Our little global village is frail indeed unless we act together.’

16 June 2008