JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Violations of human rights in wars, civil conflicts, and brutal repression mounted by governments against their own citizens often have profound consequences to individual and public health and may, in turn, produce humanitarian crises. The skills of physicians, medical and forensic scientists, and other health workers are uniquely valuable in human rights investigations and documentation, producing evidence of abuse more credible and less vulnerable to challenge than traditional methods of case reporting. ⋯ This article presents case studies from the field missions of Physicians for Human Rights to illustrate the investigation and documentation of violations of medical neutrality, refugee health crises, the use of indiscriminate weapons, torture, deliberate injury and rape, and mass executions. Participation of health workers in the defense of human rights now includes investigation and documentation of health effects in threatened populations as well as individual victims.
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We examined the tobacco industry's new strategy to defeat and then repeal tobacco control ordinances in California and the efforts of health professionals to pass and defend these ordinances. Case studies were conducted in California communities in 1991 and 1992, using published reports, public documents, attendance at public meetings, and interviews. The tobacco industry is spending millions of dollars to intervene in California communities to oppose legislation protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke. ⋯ If these efforts do not weaken or defeat an ordinance, the tobacco industry initiates a referendum petition drive to suspend it to pressure local elected officials to repeal or weaken it. If this tactic fails, the industry often finances an election campaign to repeal the ordinance by popular vote. Although the tobacco industry's new strategy has hindered the passage of some local tobacco control ordinances, when health professionals and elected officials remained active and committed, the industry's efforts have failed and the ordinances have been upheld.