The right to health fifty years on: still skeptical?

The drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a crucial step in the recognition of a legal right to health. Although the past 50 years have revealed weaknesses in the Declaration, it has been an important catalyst for social and legal change worldwide and for new thinking about public health. Recently, the struggle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic has taught us that protecting the human rights of those most at risk is, in fact, a most effective means of preventing the spread of HIV. Traditional public health problems, as well as those involving new biotechnologies, must today be addressed with specific attention to human rights.