You can't have public health without a public health system. We just don't want to be part of a mindless competition for resources. We want to build back capacity in the system. Paul Farmer More Quotes by Paul Farmer More Quotes From Paul Farmer Ebola has not yet come into contact with modern medicine in West Africa. But when protocols for the provision of high quality supportive care are followed, the case fatality rate for Ebola may be lower than 20 percent. Paul Farmer supportive medicine ebola I think we will see better vaccines within the next 15 years, but I'm not a scientist and am focused on the short-term - what will happen in the interim. Paul Farmer vaccines years thinking WL’s [White Liberals] think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We don’t believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from roaches Paul Farmer sacrifice believe thinking I'm not an austere person. Paul Farmer persons Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody. Paul Farmer access primaries should If you look just at the decades after 1934, you know it's hard to point to really inspired and positive support from outside of Haiti, to Haiti, and much easier to point to either small-minded or downright mean-spirited policies. Paul Farmer support mean looks You can't have public health without working with the public sector. You can't have public education without working with the public sector in education. Paul Farmer public-sector public-education public-health I've been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully. Paul Farmer records historical years Since I do not believe that there should be different recommendations for people living in the Bronx and people living in Manhattan, I am uncomfortable making different recommendations for my patients in Boston and in Haiti. Paul Farmer boston believe people I've been asked a lot for my view on American health care. Well, 'it would be a good idea,' to quote Gandhi. Paul Farmer would-be views ideas I critique market-based medicine not because I haven't seen its heights but because I've seen its depths. Paul Farmer height medicine depth I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory. Paul Farmer impact catholic social The world is full of miserable places. One way of living comfortably is not to think about them or, when you do, to send money Paul Farmer way world thinking The thing about rights is that in the end you can't prove what should be considered a right. Paul Farmer ends should rights In an age of explosive development in the realm of medical technology, it is unnerving to find that the discoveries of Salk, Sabin, and even Pasteur remain irrelevant to much of humanity. Paul Farmer technology humanity discovery Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors. Paul Farmer struggle latin country The human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view. Paul Farmer community rights views If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti - and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera... which can spread like wildfire in Haiti... This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti. Paul Farmer retrospect should-have country Haiti is always talking about decentralization and nothing has been so obvious, perhaps a weakness, as the centralized nature of Haitian society as being revealed by the earthquake. I mean, they lost all these medical training programs because they didn't have them anywhere else. Paul Farmer earthquakes talking mean But as for activism, my parents did what they could, given the constraints, but were never involved in the causes I think of when I think of activists. Paul Farmer causes parent thinking
