In advance of the second Global COVID-19 Summit, co-hosted by the United States, Belize, Germany, Indonesia, and Senegal, the following statement is attributable to Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, medical director at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and professor of public health and internal medicine at University of Michigan:  “As the world surpasses 15 million deaths […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) welcomes and congratulates Dr. Ashish Jha on his new position as the White House Coronavirus Coordinator, which he began this month. PHR is grateful for Dr. Jha’s service on our Board of Directors and wishes him well in this critical role. Dr. Jha takes up this new role at a […]

Following Monday’s ruling by a federal judge in Florida to strike down masking requirements on airplanes, trains, buses, and other public transportation, public health experts are concerned this decision sets a precedent in undermining the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) authority to guide and direct response to public health emergencies now and […]

Submitted by Adam Richards, MD, PhD, MPH, DTM&H, Associate Professor of Global Health and Medicine at The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Member of the Board of Directors and the PHR Asylum Network. Thank you for the opportunity […]

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reiterates its call on the White House and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to immediately rescind the Title 42 order, through which the U.S. government has expelled asylum seekers and other migrants more than one million times over the past two years.   On March 11, the CDC […]

NEW YORK – Two years after the World Health Organization’s pandemic declaration, the unrelenting spread of the COVID-19 virus has fractured the bedrock of public health systems, claimed millions of lives, sickened tens of millions of people, and further exacerbated health disparities globally. Marking the two-year anniversary, the following statement is attributable to Michele Heisler, […]

Amid a surge of state legislature efforts to limit medical boards’ ability to investigate patient harm, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) warns of undue political influence and a rising tide of disinformation that threaten public health.    At least 26 states are considering legislation to either limit state medical boards’ authority to investigate patient harm […]

NEW YORK — In response to the Biden administration and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s formal support of Congressional action to provide permanent legal status for victims of the Trump-era family separation policy, migrant health experts with first-hand experience evaluating psychological trauma sustained by separated families are calling on the Biden […]

Medical professionals are raising the alarm about the U.S. government’s failure to provide COVID-19 vaccine booster doses to migrants and asylum seekers in government detention. In a letter addressed to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tae D. Johnson, leading medical professionals and […]

January 27, 2022 Dear Secretary Mayorkas and Acting Director Johnson, As concerned medical school faculty, we write to express serious concerns about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) failure to provide COVID-19 vaccine booster doses to eligible immigrants held in ICE detention facilities nationwide. The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent emergence of the Omicron variant […]

PHR report provides evidence of compounded health disparities and inequities across northern Syria in the wake of a decade-long assault on health care by the government

In response to the world reaching five million confirmed COVID-19 deaths, the following statement is attributable to Max Hadler, MPH, COVID-19 senior policy expert at Physicians for Human Rights:  “Nairobi, Kenya. South Carolina, USA. Ireland. Imagine the incalculable loss if the entire population of a city, state, or country of five million people perished. As we mark five million confirmed COVID-19 deaths worldwide, it’s difficult to fathom the scope of this ongoing catastrophe.  “But rather than give […]

1,383 medical professionals today demanded that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) end the Title 42 border expulsions order that has systematically endangered thousands of people who seek asylum in the United States. Including clinicians from 49 U.S. states and territories, as well as the District of Columbia, the doctors, nurses, and other […]

In reaction to today’s global COVID-19 summit hosted by President Biden, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance caution that ambitious goals to vaccinate the world will only be met with bold action to increase manufacturing, technology transfer, and access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world, not empty promises. The Alliance, which is a coalition of […]

Despite the rapid development of effective vaccines and efforts to ramp up production, much of the world’s population has limited – if any – access to vaccines, while high-income countries continue to hoard vaccine doses and refuse to take the necessary steps to ensure equitable global distribution. As global leaders gathered in New York City […]

On Monday, September 20, 2021, PHR hosted a virtual press conference with top public health, epidemiology, and human rights experts calling on high-income countries to do much more to scale up vaccine manufacturing and equitable distribution. The event was moderated by PHR COVID-19 senior policy expert Max Hadler. Participants included: Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, President […]

On the eve of President Biden’s global COVID summit on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly, campaigners from the People’s Vaccine Alliance are calling for world leaders to go beyond empty promises of charity and deliver bold action to increase manufacturing and access to COVID vaccines around the world. The Alliance, which is a […]

Ahead of a global COVID-19 summit Wednesday convened by U.S. President Joe Biden at the United Nations General Assembly, leading experts in global health, epidemiology, and COVID-19 vaccines joined a press briefing Monday hosted by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to call on the U.S. and governments of other high-income countries to drastically ramp up […]

More than 140 former heads of state and government and Nobel laureates today called on the candidates to be the next German chancellor Annalena Baerbock, Olaf Scholz, and Armin Laschet to declare themselves in favour of waiving intellectual property rules for COVID 19 vaccines and transferring vaccine technologies, and “to make these the policies of […]

In response to new COVID-19 policies announced by President Joe Biden today, the following statement is attributable to Ranit Mishori, MD, MHS, senior medical advisor at Physicians for Human Rights and professor of family medicine at Georgetown University: “With hospitals full, staff overstretched, and the Delta variant roiling the country, the White House is right […]

Separation of families. Denial of medication and medical care. Nonconsensual medical procedures. For decades, health and rights advocates have documented abuses against people held in U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) detention. However, as COVID-19 began to rage across the United States, pandemic-related inadequacies worsened conditions for detainees and exacerbated the existing threats to their health […]

Hopes of controlling the COVID-19 pandemic are increasing, with nearly five billion doses of vaccines administered globally. Yet for vulnerable populations such as Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, there is a long road ahead. As a result of the violent August 2017 crackdown on Rohingya previously living in Myanmar, Bangladesh hosts a population of nearly one […]

In response to the Biden administration’s announcement that it will begin to offer booster COVID-19 vaccines to all eligible people in the U.S. beginning September 20, the following statement is attributable to Max Hadler, MPH, MA, PHR’s COVID-19 senior policy expert: “As of today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has only approved booster […]

As COVID-19 continues to ravage low- and middle-income countries, Iraq struggles to manage the pandemic within its borders. It continues to have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the Middle East: to date, only about one million people have been fully vaccinated, representing less than two percent of a population of approximately 40 million. […]

While COVID-19 “recovery” usually implies a patient’s recuperation from physical symptoms, the recovery of health care systems from systemic fractures exposed by the pandemic is equally pressing. With 7 out of 10 Black Americans reporting unfair treatment by the medical establishment, and the grossly inadequate safety measures provided for immigrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs […]