Health and Human Rights News
Week ending 5 July 2025
Financing for development outcomes include health…
UNAIDS Director Winnie Byanyima has called the Seville Platform for Action a ‘remarkable leap forward’. This outcome document of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development comprises 130 initiatives and was adopted by 192 countries. It demands action towards strengthening global health architecture, addressing the financing gap for Sustainable Development Goals, and enabling further progressive taxation of the wealthy and corporations. “The Seville platform is an opportunity to show that we can change world governance to put people and their health at the centre. Health must be a right for everyone everywhere in the world,” said Spain’s Minister of Health, Mónica García Gómez, at a special event on Health Financing for a safe and sustainable economy.
…Spain and Brazil pushed for increased taxes on the super rich
At the UN’s Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, Spain and Brazil jointly pushed forward a proposal to increase taxes for the super-rich. The Center for Economic and Social Rights welcomed the push for global restructuring, saying that “the initiative rightly frames wealth redistribution as essential for reducing social divides, restoring trust in democracy, and financing the realization of rights.”
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: A Tax on the World’s Ultra-Rich to Fight Hunger and Disease, Eric A. Friedman and Lawrence O. Gostin, 20 May 2025, Vol 27/1.
Restructuring global finance to save SDGs
With only five years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) maintaining current rate of progress will not succeed. Amnesty International said as inequalities widen, “countries in or at risk of spiralling debt spend more on debt repayments than on public services that are essential to people’s rights such as to health and education.” They called for countries to recommit to SDGs and demanded transformation of development finance, taxation, debt, and public and private investment in order to meet them.
WHO promotes health taxes to fight chronic diseases
The World Health Organization has launched a major initiative to increase prices of tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks by at least 50% over the next 10 years through imposing health taxes. “The “3 by 35” Initiative comes at a time when health systems are under enormous strain from rising noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), shrinking development aid and growing public debt.”
See also:
Ecuador Court Forces Tax Changes to Comply with the Right to Health, VIEWPOINT, Berenice Cerra and Daniel Dorado, September 11, 2024
Climate financing and accountability remain blocked
Climate finance was again at the heart of global climate negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change mid-year meeting, and again, it was the issue that exposed the deepest fractures, writes the Center for Economic and Social Rights. “Wealthy nations continued to block meaningful accountability for their obligations, resisting Global South proposals and failing to respond to the urgency of the moment.” However, there were some breakthroughs including the introduction of human rights to climate reparations and a new draft text on just transitions.
See also:
Climate Justice, Humans Rights, and the Case for Reparations Audrey R. Chapman and A. Karim Ahmed, 2021, Vol 23/2
Türk: The world can and must do better
At the Human Rights Council Annual Panel on adverse impacts of climate change, High Commissioner Volker Türk urged governments to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis and ensure human rights-based approaches to a just transition. Such a transition would be “a roadmap that shows us how to rethink our societies, economies and politics in ways that are equitable and sustainable…If we don’t safeguard people’s lives, their health, their jobs and their future opportunities, the transition will replicate and exacerbate the injustices and inequalities in our world.”
See also:
EDITORIAL Health Rights and the Urgency of the Climate Crisis Carmel Williams and Gillian MacNaughton, 2021, 23/2.
WHO: Loneliness is a killer
The World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Social Connection has released a report on the pervasive impacts of loneliness on health and wellbeing. It sets out ways to bolster social connection, and calls on leaders across sectors to take social health seriously. The report reveals that one in every six people is affected by loneliness, and that an estimated 100 people die every hour from loneliness-related causes.
Dismay as Trump’s domestic policy bill passes
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill was passed this week, described by global health leaders as a devastating assault on the health and dignity of millions of Americans. Lawrence O. Gostin of the O’Neill Institute said the act will strip nearly 12 million people of their health insurance, drive up medical debt, and further destabilize an already strained health system. It is one of the most aggressive rollbacks of health protections, resulting in the biggest cuts to our nation’s safety net in modern history.
Ruling overturns Trump administration grant cancellations
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week moved to reinstate about 900 grants following a judge’s ruling that they had been canceled illegally. NIH staff also learned this week they had to pause on new terminations. Since January, about 2300 grants have been canceled in response to Trump’s executive orders banning federal funds for research on diversity, equity, and inclusion; racial health disparities; and transgender health.
See also:
Trump’s Banned Words and Disastrous Health Policies, Joseph J. Amon, Feb 2024, Vol 27/1
Enforceable Commitments to Global Health Needed to Fulfill Rights, Moses Mulumba, Jessica Oga, Juliana Nantaba, and Ana Lorena Ruano, March 2025, Vol 27/1
EPA staff sign a Declaration of Dissent
Staff at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have published a Declaration of Dissent in protest against the Trump-appointed Administrator Lee Zeldin. They state, “EPA employees join in solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.” They detail five areas of concern, including undermining public trust, ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters, reversing EPA progress in vulnerable communities, dismantling research and development, and promoting a culture of fear.
FDA top vaccine official rejects expert opinion
Dr. Vinay Prasad, the US Food and Drug Administration’s new chief medical and scientific officer overruled lead scientists at the agency to reject the broad use of two COVID-19 vaccines. Prasad said his decision was based on safety concerns and a reduced threat from the virus. Public health experts have expressed concern at this move and its suggestion of Dr. Prasad’s general policies on vaccination.
Sudanese refugees risk of hunger
The World Food Programme (WFP) is warning its loss of funding will leave the millions of Sudanese fleeing civil war without food in neighbouring countries. The WFP had funding slashed by the Trump administration cuts earlier this year, and it is reported The European Union, the United Kingdom and Germany have also cut their foreign aid as some nations switch funding to invest in defence.
See also:
A Forgotten War: Sudan’s Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis, Ketan Tamirisa, Lara Kendall, Faraan O. Rahim, Paul Kim, Esraa Usman Eltayeb, and Nhial T. Tutlam, June 30, 2025
Human rights crisis deepens in Myanmar
Escalating conflict and administrative restrictions in Myanmar are pushing the humanitarian system toward collapse. UN officials warn that airstrikes and armed clashes are endangering civilians, especially in ethnic minority areas. At the same time, access to food, healthcare, and safe shelter is vanishing as aid agencies face funding cuts and bureaucratic hurdles.
Call to release health workers detained in Gaza
Civil society organizations are demanding an end to Israel’s arbitrary detention of Palestinian health workers in Gaza and the West Bank. Human Rights Watch reports that hundreds of health workers have been forcibly removed from hospital wards and patient bedsides and subjected to prolonged detention in Israeli prisons and military camps. At least 185 healthcare workers from Gaza and the West Bank were estimated to be in Israeli detention as of February 2025. Since October 2023, there have been around 700 attacks on health, including aerial bombardments of hospitals, health clinics and ambulances.
See also:
A Doctor’s Resistance in Gaza: Academic Action, Abdulwhhab Abu Alamrain and Bilal Irfan, June 19, 2025
Starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians
“Gaza’s decimated health sector, already overwhelmed with the volume of injuries, is struggling to deal with the influx of infants and children hospitalized for malnutrition,” reported Amnesty International this week. The organization has collected accounts from healthcare workers, parents of children hospitalized for malnutrition, and displaced individuals throughout Gaza.
UN reports suffering in Gaza is unbearable
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is deepening at an alarming rate, ambassadors in the Security Council were advised this week. Israeli military operations and attacks on civilians seeking aid continue to exact a devastating toll on lives and infrastructure and more than 1,000 Palestinians had been killed since mid-June alone, many while seeking aid. Citing figures from the Gazan health authorities, ambassadors were told that the total number of Palestinian fatalities since 7 October 2023 had surpassed 56,500, and “the level of suffering and brutality in Gaza is unbearable.”
Suriname is malaria-free
After 70 years of dedication and hard work, the World Health Organization has announced that Suriname is now malaria-free. This success will demand continuous safeguarding, but signifies that “the country has proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that the chain of indigenous transmission has been interrupted nationwide for at least the previous three consecutive years.” The Director of the Pan American Health Organization commended the country for this milestone, noting that it is the first nation in the Amazon to have done so.