HMS/HSDM Class Day: Science Applied to Problems of the Poor HSPH Class Day: Speakers Address People's Health and Social Disparities Alumni Day Symposium: HMS Alums Take on the Health Care Crisis Class Symposium Class of '79 Details Illness in the Body Politic Faculty Symposium: At the NRB, Faculty View Convergence of Biology and Medicine Class Day: HMS/HSDM Speakers Describe Their Personal Journeys International Health: Education and Research Center Launched in Dubai Medical Education: New Residency Created in Global Health Prizes and Awards: Honors Given to Students and Faculty for 2004 Letter to the Editor   Small Molecule Blocks Herpes Replication Test Ratio Predicts Breast Cancer Patients Who Respond to Tamoxifen   Proceedings of the HMS Faculty Council   Student-Faculty Collaboration Yields Pharmacology Text   Front Page

HSPH CLASS DAY Speakers Address People's Health and Social Disparities A global outcome gap--in which there is an ever-widening disparity between wealthy and poor countries in access to the benefits of science and other resources--is the biggest problem facing public health practitioners today, said medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer at the HSPH commencement on June 10 in the Kresge Courtyard. HSPH commencement speaker Paul Farmer (left) and HSPH dean Barry Bloom (right) urged graduates to remedy disparities in health care. (Photo by Richard Chase) HSPH dean Barry Bloom opened the ceremony, establishing a theme about health and global disparities that Farmer would continue. He listed numerous telling contrasts; for example, while the average life expectancy in the United States is about 77 years, life expectancy in eight other countries now languishes at under 40 years, he said. "Our greatest challenge in public health, I believe, focuses on the disparities in health within this rich country and between countries of the world," Bloom added. HSPH graduate Eric Fleeger celebrates receiving his Master's of Public Health with his sidetracked son. (Photo by Richard Chase) Echoing Bloom's concern, Farmer, the Maude and Lillian Presley professor of social medicine at HMS, cited the seriousness and dire consequences of inequities, whether experienced locally or internationally. "Even scientific progress threatens to be undone by global inequality and a commensurate failure to invest in protecting the health of the poorest," Farmer said. "Those with access to the fruits of science live longer and healthier lives, while those without it lead shorter and more painful ones." "Those with access to the fruits of science live longer and healthier lives, while those without it lead shorter and more painful ones." --Paul Farmer Farmer described three primary issues that current and future public health practitioners will face. One is social justice. "We need an equity plan if we are to get life-saving interventions to those who need them most," he said. Public health, he observed, is well suited for such a task. "There is no single compass for as diverse an endeavor as public health as you will practice it across this broad world." Second, Farmer urged graduates to find alternatives to what he sees as the "balkanization" of medicine and public health. "By integrating prevention and care, we make common cause between clinicians and epidemiologists; policymakers and scientists; activists, patients, and health researchers; [and] the rich and poor," he said. Third, public health practitioners must fight for more resources. Farmer called on public health practitioners to identify and use what he called "weapons of mass salvation," such as vaccines, sanitation efforts, and new medical technologies. He said, "There are enough resources on this planet to do the job and do it right." Student speaker and doctor Richard Allen described an accident he had witnessed to underscore the value of prevention and the difference it can make in the world. At the corner of Longwood and Brookline avenues recently, Allen saw a pedestrian hit by a car. He and two other doctors who happened to be nearby ran to help the woman. What could have prevented the accident, he asked himself--wider sidewalks, better driver education? Public health, too, must consider how to prevent catastrophes, he said; the speeding car in his analogy might stand for SARS, cancer, or poverty. In providing treatment after the fact, the well-intentioned doctors, including himself, could represent, "our flawed medical system, whose foundation is not prevention." He said to his classmates, "You can stop the speeding car of disease and make safer the world where we stand--in whatever capacity you might serve, and I know you will." A webcast of the commencement is available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/commencement2004/webcast.html. --Paula Hartman Cohen