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To the Editor: Dr Cobey¹ suggests that there is a fundamental conflict between medical neutrality and physicians' human rights advocacy. This important issue merits reflection.

I teach a semester-long seminar in health and human rights to Yale University School of Medicine students. We discuss a wide range of issues including the impact of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, treatment of torture victims, and documentation of human rights abuses. Much to my surprise, I find the students enthusiastic about these discussions.

As an Iranian, I have witnessed massive human rights violations and the severe distortions of normal social conditions and know about the desperate moments when physicians find the common code of ethics profoundly inadequate. It is no surprise that the World Medical Association's (WMA's) 1948 Hippocratic Oath was amended in 1949, 1968, and 1983.^2-3 In addition, the WMA created several other international instruments including the Regulations in Time of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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RELATED LETTER

Health and Human Rights in the Medical School Curriculum
James C. Cobey and Victor W. Sidel
JAMA. 1999;281(4):324-325.
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