Science in the fight to uphold the rights of children

Arthur L Caplan and Peter J Hotez

PLOS Biology, 2018, vol. 16, issue 9, 1-5

Abstract: The United States is the only major nation to not yet have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Recently, there has been an erosion of the rights of children across America, Europe, and elsewhere, but through science, we may have an opportunity to counter some of this alarming trend. In the area of vaccines, the scientific community can raise its voice on the dangers that nonmedical exemptions and delays pose to children at risk for measles, influenza, and other childhood illnesses. Poverty places infants and children at high risk for illness and homelessness. Gun violence and gun-related accidents are killing on average four American children daily, and climate change is promoting global pediatric malnutrition. Increasing international, federal, and state support to seek innovative solutions to these and related issues is a moral imperative.In this Perspective article, Peter Hotez and Arthur Caplan argue that scientists can have important and new roles in limiting recent declines in the rights of children across America (and in some European countries), especially in the areas of child poverty, low vaccination rates, gun violence, and disease and malnutrition due to climate change.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000010 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file ... 00010&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:3000010

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000010

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Biology from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosbiology ().