Paul Farmer

"It is shocking that hundreds of millions of people in the world today do not have access to even the discoveries of Louis Pasteur," he said at a talk inaugurating a lecture series of the Howard Hiatt Residency in Global Health Equity in Internal Medicine, which is based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and involves the completion of a master’s degree in public health at HSPH. The program was established in honor of former HSPH Dean Howard Hiatt, who co-founded the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at BWH with Farmer and Dr. Jim Yong Kim. The talk, held in Snyder Auditorium on September 13, drew a capacity crowd.

A professor at Harvard Medical School, Farmer is a co-founder of Partners in Health, an international health organization with broad-based clinical and research activities. He singled out the work of Hiatt and current HSPH Dean Barry Bloom as sterling examples of the professional depth and breadth necessary if global health care is to become more equitable.

Describing a dream team capable of tackling the knotty problem of health disparities, Farmer listed epidemiologists, biostatisticians, decision scientists, and people in communications, sociology, medical ethics, and medical informatics, among others.

Because prevention is such an important part of health care, Farmer called for more participation by patients in community education programs. For example, earlier this year Farmer met a young man in Haiti who was gravely ill with HIV. The man received anti-retroviral therapy at a Partners in Health clinic and his health improved dramatically. Calling himself the "second Lazarus," the young man–who can neither read nor write–shares his story with participants in local prevention programs.

"I think it is important for us to see health care–and ultimately health–as a human right," Farmer said. Echoing the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who called injustice in health "the most inhumane" form of inequality, Farmer noted that anyone can and will become sick.

"When people are sick, they need to have access to health care," said Farmer. "The question is, ‘Will their access to care be decided by their race, gender, class, or [where they live]?’"

More talks are planned for the third Tuesday of each month. For more information, visit www.brighamandwomens.org/socialmedicine/gheresidency.asp.

--PHC