Medact relaunched: a renewed call for health professionals to campaign for social justice

摘要

Medact turned 21 last year. This makes it a fairly young organization. However, in today's fast moving world, 21 years is a long time. When Medact was formed, South Africa was still under apartheid rule. The Internet was newly created (and few people had heard of it) and smart phones could only be seen on Star Trek. The Framework Convention on Climate Change had only just come into existence following the Earth Summit that was held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The Gates Foundation did not exist; neither did the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria. The term Global Health was hardly ever used. In this respect, Medact was ahead of the times. It was amongst the very first health organizations to recognize that the health of individuals and countries were fundamentally inter-dependent due to the immense destructive power of nuclear weapons, the fragile but single ecosystem of the planet and the growing power of multinationals.