“If Chiapas has a lesson for the rest of the world, it’s that the world’s resources  must be more evenly shared. Human rights are respected when everyone has food, shelter, education, and health care -- and the poor of Chiapas were claiming these rights.” (111)

How this chapter contributes to the overall thesis of the book: 

It shows the human rights issues in Mexico from the point of view of the poor, specifically in Chiapas.

 [See designated pages for the full quotations.]

99--”It is not true that Chiapas is poor . . .who are poor.”

99-- “In a declaration made at the outset . . . existence the media recognized.”

103--”Although one hears much talk about the “Mexican bailout” . . . more visible inequalities.”

“Russian prisoners with an airborne disease have become yet another reminder of the “unsustainability” of any approach based on differential valuation of human life” (129)

How it is related to the overall thesis:

Those who are incarcerated have rights that are not the same as other civilians. Once they go to jail they are prone to getting TB, and it violates human rights that they are not getting the right and effective treatment. You can’t determine who gets treatment based on their criminal status.

Significant Quotations:

133--“Drug prices should not constitute the chief barrier to effective therapy for all patients, regardless of infecting strain."

119--“But the overall effect of a modern Russian TB colony is one of gloom, shabbiness, and desuetude, amid a stark lack of necessary supplies."

129--“But the case for prompt and effective therapy for all forms of active tuberculosis, everywhere, must also be made on human rights ground."

119--“An epidemiological catastrophe has come to pass inside Russia’s prisons and in many others throughout the former Soviet Union: ineffective treatment regimens have produced drug-resistant disease and since only the susceptible strains are being treated effectively, the proportion of drug resistant cases continues to grow.” 

“Curing the prisoners before their release is the best way to respect their rights and also the best way to prevent further transmission to prison staff and to the civilian population”(121).

“Opponents of universal tuberculosis treatment . . . fail to acknowledge that MDRTB is not exclusively a disease of poor people in distant places” (133).

5--“The images and events we experienced during these twenty-four hours -- rummaging Mexican soldiers, a martyred teenager and a martyred bishop, the workshop of well-meaning elites from the capital, a mental health project involving exhumation, a cry against neo-liberalism -- encapsulate as well as anything can the heart of what I hope to write about in these pages.”

6--”This book is a physician-anthropologist’s effort to reveal the ways in which the most basic right--the right to survive--is trampled in an age of great affluence, and it argues that the matter should be considered the most pressing one of our times. The drama, the tragedy , of the destitute sick concerns not only physicians and scholars who work among the poor but all who profess even a passing interest in human rights. It’s not much of a stretch to argue that anyone who wishes to be considered humane has ample cause to consider what it means to be sick and poor in the era of globalization and scientific advancement.”

19--”Pathologies of Power suggests that a broad biosocial approach, when anchored in careful examination of specific cases, permits a critical reassessment of conventional views on human rights.”

20--”Pathologies of Power draws on social theory--and even liberation theology--to reintroduce the concept of structural violence and to link it to the acute violence of war crimes and systematic assaults against human rights.”

22--”When it is a matter of telling the truth and serving the victims, let unwelcome truths be told. Those of us privileged to witness and survive such events and conditions are under an imperative to unveil -- and keep unveiling -- these pathologies of power.”

 

How this chapter contributes to the overall thesis of the book: The foundation of this chapter is rooted in the poor's experiences and perspectives of suffering. From this aspect, we are able to better understand the implications of human rights.

 

·         Page 42 - "Rather, simultaneous consideration of various social "axes" is imperative in efforts to discern a political economy of brutality."

·         Page 50 - "Today, the world's poor are the chief victims of structural violence - a violence that has thus far defied the analysis of many who seek to understand the nature of distribution of extreme suffering. Why might this be so? One answer is that the poor are not only more likely to suffer; they are also less likely to have their suffering notices…'A wall between the rich is being built, so that poverty does not annoy the powerful and the poor are obliged to die in the silence of history.'" 

p.54 " The version offered here—that of the detainees, many of whom I interviewed in 1993—differs significantly from the accounts offered by journalists, U.S. government officials, and even the Haitians’ lawyers."

Farmer uses the perspective of two people Yolande Jean and Jesus Balle. Both of these individuals are ill due to their socioeconomic status and their basic human rights are violated by their governments and the USA because they are considered diseased. 

p.56 " We're treated like animals"

p.61 "We had been asking them to remove the barbed wire; the children were playing near it, they were falling and injuring themselves. The food they were serving us, including canned chicken, had maggots in it. And yet they insisted that we eat it. “Because you’ve got no choice.” And it was for these reasons that we started holding demonstrations."

p.75 "The promotion of equity—and thus of social and economic rights— is the central ingredient for respecting human rights in health care."

p.210- "the greatest challenge for medical ethics is to resocialize the way we see ethical dilemmas in medicine"

p.-210-"To return to questions of accountability, I would also warn that the so-called “gray areas” of medical ethics are becoming more black and white with time. "
p. 201-"The good news is that even though the poor are not mentioned in the document, something just as important is: the first of the ethical principles enumerated states that health care is a human right.17 Of course, this has all been said before—health care is certainly featured as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights— but the Tavistock document is a statement on professional ethics and, like most such statements, was formulated by members of the profession"