all Paul Farmer stories

Louise Ivers: 'I can’t sleep at night because of the things that I see.'

404132862 — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:27:17 -0400

Louise Ivers gently lifted the 7-month-old by his forearms, hoping he would pull himself up as a healthy child a third his age might.

But his head hung limply back, eyes wide, upper body slack.

At 7 months, when a healthy child would be sitting up on his own and thinking about crawling, this baby boy was unable to control his head, unable to pull himself from the sheets. Gently, she laid him back.

Harvard researchers receive $14 million TB study grant

404132862 — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:48:22 -0500

Harvard researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Partners In Health (PIH) have received a grant of $14 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

Farmer, Magaziner: Get involved!

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:25:36 -0400

Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer and Ira Magaziner, a one-time policy adviser in the Clinton White House, brought humor, counsel, and cautions to a public conversation on student engagement Sept. 20.

Greeting them was a packed-to-the-ceiling John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, where the crowd was noisy, young, and ready to laugh — egged on by Farmer’s explosive wit. Magaziner, measured and lugubrious, happily played the young doctor’s straight man.

Not that the panel was a laughing matter. With audience questions included, it was a 90-minute look at global health challenges and related avenues for student activism.

Hundreds of thousands with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could be saved

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:27:49 -0400

A study has provided the first hard evidence that outpatient community care in poor, urban shantytowns can work for the most difficult to treat form of tuberculosis. The multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment model could ultimately help save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide. Among those who completed at least four months of therapy, the percentage with probable cures in this community-based study was 83 percent, as high as any reported to date, even in hospital settings.