|
Adopted by the 40th World Medical Assembly,
Vienna, Austria, September 1988
and editorially revised at the 170th Council Session, Divonne-les-Bains,
France, May 2005
| WHEREAS |
academic sanctions
or boycotts are discriminatory restrictions on academic, professional
and scientific freedoms that deny or exclude physicians and
others from educational, cultural and scientific meetings
and other opportunities for the exchange of information and
knowledge, the purpose of such restrictions being to protest
the social and political policies of governments, and |
| WHEREAS |
such restrictions are
in direct conflict with the major objectives of the WMA, viz.,
to achieve the highest international standards in medical
education, medical science, medical art and medical ethics,
and |
| WHEREAS |
such restrictions adversely
affect health care, particularly of the disadvantaged, and
therefore thwart the WMA's objective of obtaining the best
possible health care for all people of the world, and |
| WHEREAS |
such restrictions discriminate
against physicians and patients on grounds of political persuasion
or of political decisions taken by governments and are therefore
in conflict with the WMA's Declaration of Geneva, Statement
on Non-Discrimination in Professional Membership and Activities
of Physicians and Statement on Freedom to Attend Medical Meetings,
and |
| WHEREAS |
a basic rule of medical
practice is "primum non nocere", i.e. first, do
no harm, |
| THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that
the WMA regards the application of such restrictions as arbitrary
political decisions designed to deny international scholarly
exchange and to blacklist particular physicians or bodies
of physicians because of their nationality or because of the
political policies of their governments. The WMA is unalterably
opposed to such restrictions and calls on all National Medical
Associations to resist the imposition of such restrictions
by every means at their disposal and to heed the WMA's Statement
on Non-Discrimination in Professional Membership and Activities
of Physicians and the WMA Statement on Freedom to Attend Medical
Meetings. |
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