I recommend the same therapies for all humans with HIV. There is no reason to believe that physiologic responses to therapy will vary across lines of class, culture, race or nationality.
Paul FarmerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the vulnerability of Haiti to cholera outbreaks and identifies the need for better preparedness in public health.
Paul Farmer reflects on the critical situation in Haiti, emphasizing its role as a warning about the potential spread of cholera due to the country's health infrastructure challenges. He acknowledges the collective guilt among public health workers for not sufficiently preparing for a disease that could easily escalate in such a vulnerable environment.
Themes
CholeraHaitiPublic HealthPreparednessOutbreak
In practice
Example use cases
During a public health seminar discussing the impact of environmental factors on disease spread.
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All quotes →With rare exceptions, all of your most important achievements on this planet will come from working with others- or, in a word, partnership.
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It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.
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The poorest parts of the world are by and large the places in which one can best view the worst of medicine and not because doctors in these countries have different ideas about what constitutes modern medicine. It's the system and its limitations that are to blame.
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There is nothing wrong with underlining personal agency, but there is something unfair about using personal responsibility as a basis for assigning blame while simultaneously denying those who are being blamed the opportunity to exert agency in their lives
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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.
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