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deal with this epidemic and to protect the rights of the individual and the community [emphasis added]; 3. Traditional legislative measures in the field of public health should be re-evaluated to assess their effectiveness and the ethical acceptability in relation to this epidemic; 4. Health legislation should be used in |
a positive way to promote and support health education and the distribution of information that can be provided by the public with the means for voluntary behavioural change [emphasis added]; 5. The importance of certain long-standing legal provisions, particularly those for confidentiality, must be re-emphasized. Clearly, the maintenance of confidentiality |
is too often threatened by administrative, technological and other developments.152 Although a state can still decide to pursue a policy of compulsory medical examinations, from a human rights and public health perspective there are two other factors that should always be weighed before a decision is actually taken. Discrimination and |
stigmatization of persons with the disease (or infection) concerned and all those perceived to be "at risk" is a frequently reported human reaction, particularly in case of a fatal disease. It is now acknowledged that discrimination and stigmatization can undermine the overall objectives of public health policy. The people concerned |
may actively avoid any contact with the health-care services out of fear of becoming further marginalized. With regard to AIDS this was stated at a UN/WHO consultation as follows: 5.9 To prevent HIV infection actively, persons whose behaviours place them at risk of exposure to HIV must be informed, educated |
and provided with health and social support. Persons suspected or known to be HlV-infected should remain integrated with society to the maximum possible extent and be helped to assume responsibility for preventing HIV transmission to others. Exclusion of these persons would be unjustified in public health terms and would undermine |
the public health programme to prevent HIV. 5.10 For these reasons, discrimination endangers public health; stigmatization itself represents a threat to public health. In summary, protecting human rights and dignity of HlV-infected people, including people with AIDS, and members of population groups, is not a luxury- it is a necessity...153 |
The conclusion is that states may engage in a policy of compulsory examinations, although for public health reasons this is only justified as an appropriate measure to contain a disease in a very restricted number of situations. The rights of the individual should be carefully weighed against the rights of |
the community, notably the right to health care and the rights and freedoms of others. Moreover, the principle involved points to the duty to study the possibility of achieving the desired results by less restrictive measures, e.g. policies aimed at promoting particular health styles and informing people how to avoid |
risky contacts. Mandatory Examinations by Private Individuals, Companies, and States As briefly indicated above, there is an undeniable trend to apply medical examinations in a wider and particularly in a non-medical context. Although a person's health status is in the first place of relevance to the person concerned, it is |
obvious that it has various implications for others as well. An employee who becomes unfit to perform his/her work generally claims alternative work, thus affecting the labour process, or may even apply for a disability benefit, thus placing a financial burden on the employer and/or insurance company. Early death increases |
the chances that the spouse/partner will claim a benefit, etc. These and other reasons explain why many private individuals (in their personal capacity or as representatives of a private company or state institution) have a strong interest in obtaining personal health information from private citizens. particularly since some of the |
life inconveniences can be calculated by subjecting individuals to a predictive medical examination. The interest in obtaining such information is particularly strong in cases where a party takes a financial risk by entering into a contractual relationship with another individual. Therefore the question arises to what extent private individuals, companies, |
or states are allowed to make access to a service or social good conditional on the results of a medical examination. If the state provides for mandatory examinations, such an interference with the right to privacy is only permissible if it is imposed in accordance with the law, is in |
the interest of a legitimate objective as laid down in Article 8(2) ECHR, and is necessary in a democratic society, i.e. proportional to the objective aimed at. If a Traffic Road Act provides, for example, for a mandatory medical examination as a precondition to obtaining a driver's licence, such a |
regulation may be considered to be necessary in the interests of public safety, the protection of health and the rights of others. In order to fulfil the principle of proportionality the testing must, however, be restricted to medical requirements for driving a motor vehicle, such as an eye test. The |
medical examination of an aircraft pilot may obviously be much more demanding. Much more difficult to answer is the question of where the limits for mandatory examinations by private employers, insurance companies, schools, etc., should be drawn. As has been explained in the introduction, both Article 17(2) CCPR and Article |
8 ECHR provide individuals with the protection of the law against arbitrary and unlawful interferences with a person's privacy by another private person. In the exercise of their obligations to protect privacy against interferences on the horizontal level, states, however, enjoy a fairly broad margin of discretion. If a private |
company selects its personnel by means of a psychological test, or if a life insurance company makes its services subject to a medical certificate, certainly no duty of the state arises to prohibit such practices. Moreover, it would even be questionable whether such a legal prohibition would not unduly interfere |
with the freedom of contract (derived from the right to privacy) and the right to property of the company concerned. On the other hand, if a state were to enact, for example, a law prohibiting mandatory HIV tests of school pupils, such a law could certainly be considered as a |
legitimate protection against interferences by private or public schools. Whether a state is, however, obliged by virtue of Article 17(2) CCPR to enact such a law if negative HIV tests were made an admission requirement for private schools is doubtful. If only black, Jewish, Muslim, or female children were required |
by private schools to undergo a medical examination, this would constitute an arbitrary interference with their privacy, which a state would be under a legal obligation to prohibit. Otherwise it would violate its duty under Articles 2(1) and 17(2) CCPR to ensure to all individuals, without distinction on the grounds |
of race, colour, sex, or religion, the right to the protection of the law against arbitrary interference with their privacy. In the General Comment 16/32 of 23 March 1988, the Human Rights Committee has explicitly stressed the duties of states parties to the CCPR "to provide the legislative framework prohibiting |
such acts154 by natural or legal persons.'' 155 These examples show that the right to privacy affords a rather limited protection against mandatory examinations required by private persons or entities. Only in extreme cases do states have an obligation legally to prohibit interference with another person's privacy on the horizontal |
level. It is thus primarily in their discretionary power which cases of mandatory examinations they permit and which they prohibit in the interest of the right to privacy. Another question is to what extent and in which cases it is permissible to make a selection on the basis of a |
person's health status. Making access to services and social goods, such as employment, social insurance, and education, conditional on a good health status might contradict the non-discrimination principle. It also creates problems concerning the duty of states to guarantee the right to work (Articles 6 and 7 CESCR and Articles |
1 and 2 ESC), the right to social security (Articles 9 CESCR and 12 ESC), and the right to education (Article 13 CESCR and Article 2 of the First Additional Protocol to the ECHR). While, on the one hand, it can be argued that the duty to treat people equally |
only applies to situations in which people are really equal, it is clear that we are dealing with slightly different situations that may, however, be comparable. The key question is thus under what circumstances a person's health status is a justifiable selection criterion. Article 26 CCPR entitles all persons to |
the "equal protection of the law. The law shall guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." A person's health status is not included in |
this list. It could only be subsumed under the criterion of "other status." From this it follows that even a legal distinction based on a person's health status must be extremely unreasonable or arbitrary to constitute discrimination in violation of Article 26 CCPR.156 Consequently, the obligation of states to protect |
individuals against selection criteria by private companies based on a person's health status must be considered as minimal.157 The case may be different, however, if the enjoyment of human rights such as the right to work, social security, and education is made subject to a particular health status. According to |
Article 9 CESCR, states parties recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance. If in a given state health insurance were only offered by private insurance companies, and if all of them refused to accept a person who had acquired a certain disease, this person would be |
denied a right to social insurance on the ground of his or her health status. Consequently, the state concerned would violate Article 9 in connection with the anti-discrimination clause in Article 2(2) CESCR. It would be under an obligation either to offer public health insurance without any distinction or to |
force private insurance companies by law to refrain from making their services dependent on the customer's health status. The same argument holds true for the right to education and in principle also for other economic, social, and cultural rights, such as the right to work. If a private school owner, |
for example, refused admission to a child on the ground that he/she had a contagious disease such decision would not amount to discrimination as long as it could be justified as necessary to protect the right to health of other schoolchildren and/or the school's employees. Even the most contagious disease |
must, however, not deprive a child of its right to education under Article 13 CESCR. It is a duty of states parties under Article 2(2) CESCR to guarantee that all rights enumerated in this Covenant will be exercised without discrimination. In practice, however, there exists very little legislation regulating the |
selection procedures for employment,158 insurance,159 and education. Passing of Medical Information to "Third Parties" Confidentiality is the expression used to describe the special nature of the physician-patient relationship. According to the International Code of Medical Ethics of the World Medical Association, "A physican shall preserve absolute confidentiality on all he |
knows about his patient even after the patient has died." Passing personal health-related information to a third party without the patient's prior consent thereto is considered as an interference with the patient's right to privacy.160 A treating physician also has to respect secrecy in his relationships with physician colleagues.161 Although |
the physician's duty to respect confidentiality is not absolute,162 the legal dilemma is obvious. Deviations from these rules are only possible if all conditions to restrict the right to privacy are fulfilled (see above)163 or in the exceptional situation of conflicting duties164 for the physician. Confidentiality is crucial to the |
patient-physician relationship. As long as a patient knows that all the efforts his/her physician makes are in the interest of his/her health, normally he/she will be willing to cooperate. Moreover, a patient who has confidence in his/her physician and knows that the information he/she gives will not be passed on |
to third parties is more likely to reveal all the facts and tell the absolute truth, so that the physician can make an optimal diagnosis of his/her case. According to the rules of the physician-paticnt relationship, the physician primarily has a duty and responsibility to inform his/her patient on his/her |
health status. In the second stage the physician and patient should decide jointly whether to pass the information obtained to a third party or not. It is only in a very narrowly defined number of cases that a physician is allowed to inform a third party without first asking the |
patient concerned for his/her permission. It follows from the above that a physician who works as an intermediary between a patient and, for example, an employer in case of a pre-employment examination has primarily a responsibility towards his/her patient. As soon as there is an (implicit) treatment agreement between the |
physician and the patient, the employer will become the third party. The rules of confidentiality derived from the right to privacy prescribe that the physician should first of all inform the patient about the results of the examination. Unless agreement is reached to act differently, the patient remains entitled to |
refuse to permit the passing on of the test results to the employer, who is the third party. States have a general duty to secure respect for these rules in vertical relations. It is unacceptable that the use of advanced medical examination techniques, particularly in a non-medical setting, should become |
a new selection criterion to exclude large numbers of people. We have discussed the relationship between advanced methods of medical treatment and human rights with respect to three particular fields: medical examinations, artificial procreation, and medical genetics. There exist, of course, a number of further topics, such as organ transplantation |
and similar methods of advanced medical treatment, which have a direct impact on human rights. All of them reveal, however, certain common characteristics which can be summarized as follows: 1. As in other fields of modern technology (industry, agriculture, electronics, etc.) new developments cause a number of serious dangers to |
human rights. Above all, the individual's right to privacy is infringed upon if, for example, states introduce arbitrary compulsory medical examinations for the prevention of contagious diseases such as AIDS, if private employers or insurance companies make their jobs or services subject to mandatory medical tests and pass medical information |
on to other institutions, if semen, egg, and embryo banks do not disclose the identity of their donors, or if human embryos created by in vitro fertilization are subjected to experiments against the will of their parents. the right to physical integrity and human dignity might be violated by certain |
methods of compulsory medical examination and genetic engineering. Economic, social, and cultural rights such as the right to work, housing, and social security are frequently restricted as a direct result of modern screening techniques. Since these methods are not infrequently applied in a discriminatory manner, the right to equality is |
also at stake. Finally, methods of gene therapy and manipulation have irreversible effects and interfere with the human rights of future generations. States have, therefore, an obligation under international law to respect these human rights and to protect them against any undue interference. 2. More than in other technological fields, |
however, the advanced methods of medical treatment also have also a very positive impact on human rights. As a general rule, medical research, experimentation, and treatment are directed at improving health services and are, therefore, a necessary requirement for ensuring the individual's right to health care. A satisfactory health status |
is an essential element of the human right to an adequate standard of living and contributes to the enjoyment of the most fundamental human right, the right to life. All methods of artificial procreation aim at improving the right of men and women to found a family. Consequently, these and |
other human rights such as freedom of research oblige states in principle to respect and to encourage the further development of medical research and treatment. 3. In order to comply in an appropriate manner with these diverse international obligations and to solve the rapidly increasing problems caused by new technological |
developments in the fields of medicine, biology, and genetics, we observe that there is an urgent need for parliaments, governments, and international organizations to take adequate legislative and other measures. One of the first questions to deal with concerns the meaning of the non-discrimination principle, notably on the grounds of |
health status, and its applicability both in horizontal and vertical relations. These and other decisions by democratically elected political bodies should be the result of carefully balancing all human rights involved. 4. A careful legal analysis of the existing international human rights law shows, however, that these human rights standards |
only in exceptional cases provide clear and legally binding obligations for states either to refrain from certain actions or to take particular positive measures with the purpose of preventing private individuals and entities from acting in contravention of human rights. 5. In most cases international human rights must, therefore, be |
considered as guidelines rather than as binding obligations. There might, however, be a need to draw up new and more specific human rights, for instance a catalogue of patients' rights and rights of future generations, including binding obligations of states to regulate horizontal relations between private individuals and entities in |
I hate to belabor this point, but I'm starting to wonder if we're all approaching carbon emissions for transportation the wrong way. Yesterday, Will from Green Couple wrote a post entitled, "What's the Best Way to Get From Here to There." He had recently driven with some friends to Wisconsin, and he calculated the carbon emissions that the trip generated. Then he calculated what |
his emissions would have been had he taken a bus, train, or plane. The plane was the most emissions-heavy, followed by the train, the bus, and then the car. So, Will made the most emissions-efficient choice, correct? And we should all try and carpool when we are traveling long distances, right? Except, hold on a second. As Will points out, "A plane, train, or |
bus isn’t going to produce that much less CO2 just because we’re not riding." And therein lies the logical fallacy. It's all very well to try to calculate individual carbon emissions, but the truth is, carbon emissions don't really work like we're pretending they work. In fact, had Will taken a train, or a bus, or even (quel horreur!) a plane, the total world |
carbon emissions would have decreased by the amount of carbon emissions caused by the car, and increased by the amount of carbon emissions caused by Will and his friend's weight. In other words, driving a car is only the most carbon efficient method IF the carbon emissions Will and his friends's weight cause on a plane, bus, or train is GREATER than the TOTAL |
emissions of the car. Which seems pretty unlikely. To put it differently, let's consider this: because Will chose not to take the bus, the per passenger miles per gallon on the bus went down. So Will might think, oh hey, my individual carbon emissions were lower because I was in the car, but actually he caused the carbon emissions of every passenger on the |
bus to go up because he chose to ride in a car instead of a bus. So what's the answer here? I hesitate to draw this out to airplanes and long distance trains, but in terms of city-wide public transport, the answer is pretty clear to me. In my opinion, a city's public transit belongs to every single citizen of the city, and NOT |
just the citizens who use it. So the true calculation of carbon emissions would be where we calculated the total carbon emissions caused by a city's public transport, and divided it up by every citizen in that city. Then an individual calculating her emissions would add that to her individual car emissions to get her actual total. But that's not fair! I don't ride |
the bus! True. But we pay for a lot of things we don't use. To me, the best analogy here is that even if you choose to send your child to a private school, you still have to pay for public schools. Similarly, even if you still drive to work, you should have to pay for the carbon emissions of public transit. That's the |
point of a "public" system. We may not all use it, but its there for everyone's benefit. Ok, Arduous, but does this nerdy mathery really matter? I think it does. Look, a lot of us are in uncharted waters. We are faced with decisions like "organic in plastic" or "conventional in glass" every day. And a lot of the time, we rely on things |
like what I'd call conventional green wisdom or carbon calculators to figure out what makes the most sense. But sometimes, conventional wisdom, even conventional green wisdom, is wrong. And that can lead us to make decisions that might not make the most sense. For example, if a bus I was taking only had three people in it, I might think, oh well then I |
might as well drive because that is the most carbon efficient. Or I might think it made more sense to drive across country to see my sister than to fly. But the reality is, those buses and planes ARE going to be in service no matter what I do. So, to me, the logical choice is to always err on the side of a |
communal form of transportation, be it a bus, a train, or yes, even a plane. Because while I believe that it is possible to eventually cause a decrease in bus paths or plane rides, we also have to deal with the here and now. Besides which, you have to ask yourself, do we really want all those people on buses, trains, and planes in |
cars and on the roads instead? Is that really the answer? (By the way, Will, I hope you understand I just used you as a guinea pig. I thought your post was great, and incredibly thought provoking which is why I ended up writing this post in response. And, needless to say, I am certainly not casting aspersions on your choice to take a |
Results of the Arkansas Benchmark Exams show nearly seven in ten Arkansas fourth graders performed at or above grade level, but just 31 percent of eighth graders were proficient in math. Overall, results from the literacy and math exams given |
this spring to fourth, sixth and eighth grade students improved in both categories at each grade level from last year. The biggest improvement was in sixth-grade iteracy, from 27 percent proficient or above in 2003 to 41 percent this year. |
The state Education Department says students scoring proficient are solid academically and well prepared for the next grade. State Education Director Ken James says education officials are pleased with the results, which he attributed to a greater focus on professional |
Researchers working on neural networks have developed a technique which could be used to deliver secure information and bypass a shortcoming of current cryptography. Scientists in Germany and Israel were |
using two different neural nets to train each other. As one may guess...great neural nets think alike. In each lesson, the scientists asked the computers to categorise unique, random pieces |
of information with the aim of getting the same answer as their partner. After each round, they compared each other's results. In a surprisingly short time, the two networks became |
aligned so that their properties are equal and opposite at every point. Connections that flowed one way in one network went in the opposite direction in its partner. How could |
this be used in cryptography? Well the two different neural nets are in tune with each other. If the nets are then normalized, they are essentially identical to each other. |
Secret information could be sent from one net to another and they would immediately know the "key". If an eavesdropper would listen into the information being sent they couldn't decipher |
After the riotous '68 convention, the party's credentials committee approved a new delegate selection process that imposed quotas for blacks, women and the young, and at Miami Beach in 1972, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's delegation was excluded from the floor. "I think we may have lost Illinois tonight," said Democratic strategist Frank Mankiewicz, quoted in William Manchester's "The Glory |
and the Dream." They were losing places like Waterbury as well. It was among the first areas Catholic immigrants flocked from Ireland, Germany and Italy with a dream to join what would be called the middle class. As the pistons driving America's burgeoning manufacturing industries, they also forged alliances with organized labor, which added to their wages and job security, |
and with the Democratic Party. Catholics transformed neighborhoods with churches, schools and a way of life. In Waterbury, there are 21 parishes in a town of just more than 100,000. A cross on one hill overlooks the interstate highway. In cities large and small, Catholics helped fashion Democrat-controlled city halls and wards. "When Catholic America was won to the New |
Deal formula for people and prosperity, the Democrats gained the national majority that would allow them to preside over the Great Democratic Era," Greenberg writes in his book, "Middle Class Dreams." "The battle of ideas was won and waged among Catholic voters. And later, when Catholics began to wonder about their place in the Democratic world, the Democratic ascendance would |
come undone and ultimately collapse." Catholic political activism found strength in 1928 with the losing presidential candidacy of the unabashedly Catholic Al Smith. After Smith's run, the Democrats became the common man's party both in rural areas and in cities. By 1936, Greenberg notes, Democrats were winning 2 out of 3 Catholic votes, a percentage that would hold for more |
than a decade and become solid with the 1948 campaign of Harry Truman. Truman's campaign galvanized Catholic voters as a vessel to oppose elitists and to remain Democratic. In the South, however, defections were noticeable with South Carolina's Gov. Strom Thurmond running as a state's rights Democrat in 1948 and formally bolting the party for the Republicans in 1964. Catholics |
have never been a monolithic vote, but they provide an indispensable swing bloc for any electoral majority. President Dwight Eisenhower cut deeply into the Catholic allegiance to Democrats, but Kennedy emphatically, if temporarily, erased those gains. "He reopened the door to the values of the lower middle class," Greenberg said. Meanwhile, Republicans continued to rack up gains in the South, |
with Barry Goldwater winning South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia. Many urban Catholics shared their views but still voted largely for Democratic presidential candidates. By 1984, Republicans had made such important inroads that it was Reagan who went to Waterbury to appeal to Catholic voters. Reagan even lauded Kennedy and the values he espoused. "Even though it was the |
fall it seemed like springtime, those days. . . . I see our country today, and I think it is springtime for America once again," Reagan said. This time, the people of Waterbury cheered the Republican. Waterbury was built in the late 17th and 18th Centuries on the backs of the ancestors of Bergin and others, men who went to |
work in the factories that made the city called the brass capital of the world. Chase and Scovill have called it home. Its motto: "What is so lasting as brass." Many of their families lived on single floors of the triple-decker frame homes that line the hillsides around town. They walked to work, carried their lunch, and stopped by the |
tavern, but returned home for dinner and went to mass on Sunday. The mills flourished in times of war and during the rise of the American automobile industry before aluminum and plastics came to dominate. But most of the factories had closed by the early 1970s after resources were depleted and production moved overseas. While jobs left, people stayed. Seventy-three |
percent of Waterbury residents were born here; half have lived in the same house for more than a decade. Democrats dominated local politics. "Candidates would buy a keg of beer, then go on the second floor of the three-story homes and address the crowds," said James Lawlor, a probate judge who even more strongly than Bergin questions the party's direction. |
"Without question it was Democratic. It was part of your religion. To leave the Democratic Party was like leaving the church." The Waterbury of today, Lawlor said, is filled with people the politicians like to call "Joe Lunch Pail." Lawlor, who considers himself conservative on social and fiscal issues, should have had a natural reach with these voters, but found |
Deep Space Sparkle, I guided the students through a drawing lesson and showed them how to paint their birdhouse sticks so that they would appear "3-D". Students started by drawing the birdhouses on large construction paper, using pencil. They worked hard on certain details, like the little perch for the bird, to make it look 3-D. When they were done drawing, they painted in |
the stick, mixing brown with white and black to give a gradient effect. After, they painted the birdhouse however they wanted! Some took the time to add in clouds and grass, and one student even colored the sky in the background! When they were finished with that, they used scraps of paper, from a grade 2/3 classes non-objective art projects back in November, to |
Giovanni Paolo Panini, Interior of St. Peter’s in Rome, 1750s J. M. W. Turner, Modern Rome, Campo Vaccino, 1839 Richard Parkes Bonington, Venice: The Piazza San Marco, n.d. Frederick Lee Bridell, The Coliseum at Rome by Moonlight, 1858 Canaletto, View of the Arch of Constantine with the Colosseum, 1742-45 John Piper, Russell Monuments at Strensham, c.1947 Charles Pierron, n.d., A |
View of Damascus The Opéra Garnier in Paris. Ceiling mural by Marc Chagall. It’s probably of little interest, but Chagall’s painting is not a mural. A mural is applied directly to the structural wall or ceiling. To protect the artwork underneath, Chagall’s ceiling was painted on canvas and stretched up on 12 polyester panels placed over the original one. Eugene |
Lenepveu’s original is still hidden under Chagall’s artwork. I don’t know it the original was a mural. Pieter Jansz Saenredam, 1635, Choir of Sint-Bavokerk, Haarlem Charles Sheeler, 1946, Ballardvale Sheeler executed various paintings and photographic series of Ballardvale mills in Massachusetts. By the mid-1900s, many of the fabric mills were no longer in use, and manufacturing had moved elsewhere outside |
of New England. John Martin, 1839, The Coronation of Queen Victoria Venice scenes (L-R): Camille Corot, Canaletto, Edouard Manet, Maurice Prendergast, Paul Signac, Pierre-Auguste Renoir Chiesa del Gesù, Rome These are some photographs I took whilst visiting the Chiesa del Gesù in Rome last April. The church is the Jesuit mother church, and has become a design model for many |
subsequent churches built for the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus. Its full name is ‘Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all’Argentina’ and it can be found just southeast of the Pantheon and northwest of the summit of the Capitoline Hill. The Chiesa del Gesu was completed in 1580 and features a Baroque facade designed by Giacomo della Porta. However, it |
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