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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June 2009, pages 57-58 Human Rights Lancet Report Makes Palestinian Health Crisis Visible To Outside World
AT A MARCH 4 press conference in London, broadcast live via videolink at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, the world-renowned British public health journal Lancet launched a new study examining long-term Palestinian health issues. Radia Daoussi and Brian Hennessey of the Vineeta Foundation, and Samar Assad, the Palestine Center’s director, co-moderated the DC component of the event. The new Lancet series brings together important data gathered by the best researchers and epidemiologists from the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), U.N. agencies, and international scientists. In his powerful introduction, President Jimmy Carter said this series should give the international community added urgency to resolve this enduring conflict and bring both Palestinians and Israelis the peace, health and hope they deserve. The first five reports (with more to follow), published in the March 2009 Lancet, cover the status of health and services in the West Bank and Gaza; maternal and pediatric health; common diseases such as cancer and diabetes; health as a human security issue; and an assessment of the OPT health-care system. The shocking findings, the culmination of two years of research, were updated after Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza. The series was compiled as a joint effort by health scientists in the OPT, together with help from World Heath Organization (WHO), associated U.N. agencies, and academic institutions in the U.S., UK, Norway and France. Americans, who rarely hear about Iraqi casualties, were stunned when Lancet published the “Iraq Mortality Study” in 2004, which estimated that by September of that year there had been approximately 100,000 excess deaths as a result of the U.S.-led war that began in March 2003. A second study estimated there were around 650,000 excess deaths through the summer of 2006. This Washington, DC reporter asked the scientists gathered in London, “What is the one thing you hope the media will take away from this new Lancet study?” Replied Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton: “The single most important message of this report is the devastating impact of occupation on the lives of the 3.8 million men, women and children who live in the occupied Palestinian territories. The story that we hear in the media is of intermittent crises such as the war in Gaza. The story that we never hear is the chronic crisis that is destroying a society and killing the future generations of Palestinians,”Dr. Horton said. “The purpose of this report is to draw attention to that crisis and to provide a scientific platform for action to do something about it. This is the beginning of a process, not the end. It’s trying to make the invisible visible for the first time,“ he concluded. Dr. Rita Giacaman, founding director of the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University, added, “We are bringing a voice to people who have been voiceless, people who have been boycotted for a long time...” She, too, had a message for the American public: “Palestinians are humans. We are not terrorists. We are not victims. The large majority of us are ordinary people. We love life, our families, children. We care about building our institutions and here we are despite all our difficulties, producing research.” Prof. Will Boyce of Queen’s University in Canada agreed with Dr. Horton that in paper four, which examined human security, scientists are bringing the visible into sight. But, he added, “So much of what we see in the OPT and the social determinants of health are clearly visible. Some of them are 8 meters tall. Some of them bring buildings to rubble...These are public health issues, threats to human life and to human capability.” Boyce said the most startling finding for scientists was the sheer scale at which human security threats affect the population. North Americans are constantly reminded about Israeli insecurity, he noted. There is now scientific documentation that poverty, home demolitions, imprisonment and torture have affected virtually everyone in the Palestinian territory, Boyce said. Decades of violence and border closures in the Palestinian territories have resulted in major health problems, including malnutrition, stunted growth in children and high infant mortality rates, according to Dr. Hanan Abdul Rahim’s report in the Lancet. Due to malnutrition 10 percent of Palestinian children—nearly 30 percent in some parts of Gaza—now have stunted growth, which affects cognitive development and physical health. More than 60 Palestinian women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints, and 36 of their babies have died as a result. In Gaza, experts estimated there were about 27 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006 (compared with Israel, where there are four deaths per 1,000 live births). Studies completed even before the recent attack on Gaza illustrated the traumatic effects that witnessing brutally violent acts can have on children, resulting in “behavioral problems, fears, speech difficulties, anxiety, anger, sleeping difficulties, lack of concentration at school, and difficulties in completing homework.” In order to solve the health crisis in the region, the Lancet series calls for a just political and economic solution, urging that if international laws were respected and enforced, they could “protect Palestinians from insecurity.” The full series can be found at <www.thelancet.com/series> (free registration is required), where one can also listen to the press conferences on both sides of the Atlantic. —Delinda C. Hanley |
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