The Right to Science

Human rights play a tremendous role in successfully tackling communicable diseases worldwide. The application of the right to health with the rights to nondiscrimination and participation has created pathways for civil society involvement in the design, implementation, and oversight of health programs, and has created space to grow social movements in the global health sphere. Activists in the HIV/AIDS movement, such as the ACT-UP members quoted in the above epigraph, realized early in the course of the HIV epidemic that science, health, and human rights are inextricably linked; and that, in fact, the combination of scientific progress and respect for human rights will be essential for achieving an AIDS-free generation. Scientists working on infectious diseases have themselves voiced the intrinsic human rights dimensions of science, exemplified by South African Medical Research Council president Glenda Gray's comparison of good science to clean water; both are public goods and basic requirements of a life with dignity.