Théodore MacDonald's latest book *Removing the Barriers to Global Health Equity* is released this week by Radcliffe Publishing.
The book presents an urgent call to bolster international organisations and cooperation in healthcare - with searing findings on the failures of neoliberal policies - that is particularly timely in light of the current global financial crisis.
The author's shocking findings demonstrate how profitable it has become for corporate interests to undermine the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this week celebrating its 60th anniversary. Making the UN and its health agencies work effectively can no longer be dismissed as an academic issue, argues MacDonald, but is crucial to the health and welfare of every human being, irrespective of nationality, wealth or status, in an interconnected and interdependent world.
Removing the Barriers to Global Health Equity* indicates steps which can be taken to avert disaster. These will involve a much higher level of international cooperation than the world has known before, but have also taken on an even greater urgency.
The book draws not only on MacDonald's experience as a medical practitioner in some of the world's poorest counties, but also on meticulously critical analysis of the written record and sharply probing interviews with key figures in UN agencies. It completes a mammoth project presenting a thoroughly researched and often damning exposé of serious but remediable defects in the structure and administration of the UN across six books, beginning with *Third World** Health: hostage to **First World** wealth *(Radcliffe Publishing, 2005).
The book will be officially launched at King's College Medical School, London on 21 January. Further details will be announced nearer the launch.
Théodore H MacDonald* is Professor Emeritus and Member of the Research Institute for Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University. He is a consultant for the World Health Organization, International Development Agency and various non-governmental organizations in developing countries. He was formerly Director of Postgraduate Studies in Health at Brunel University.