ABSTRACT
Many pressure groups, such as Oxfam and Save the Children, have a long history of highlighting the plight of disease victims but recent years have seen a significant deepening of NGO activity in this field. A new breed of pressure groups are increasingly using advanced communications technology to assist medics in LDCs. The US-based group SatelLife, for example, make use of satellites to link medics in LDCs to their developed world. TEPHINET (Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Internventions Network) was set up in 1997 and disperses help on a not-for-profit basis. The medical profession itself increasingly lobbies at the global level. MedAct is a group comprising health professionals that campaigns for governments to give greater consideration to the health impact of their policies in areas such as military security and economic development. This is a more overtly political stance than the traditional neutrality of groups such as the Red Cross, seeking to provide relief to human suffering in crisis situations. The radicalization of pressure groups, in public health and in International Relations in general, is best characterized by the work of the group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (Doctors Without Borders). MSF consciously chooses to ignore the constraints of sovereignty in its operations, sending in medical teams to countries without being specifically requested to enter by the government and making overtly political statements on the right of individual people to receive medical attention. The UN-NGO symbiosis, best known in the global politics of the environment and human rights, is also evident in health. Public health pressure groups enjoy a strong relationship with the WHO and have been extensively consulted and utilized in initiatives such as GOARN.
