all Jim Yong Kim stories

Julius B. Richmond, giant in public health and pediatrics

404132862 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:03:02 -0400

Julius B. Richmond, a seminal figure in the history of American public health and pediatrics, and the first national director of the Head Start program, who held professorial positions at three Harvard Schools, died Sunday at his home in Chestnut Hill, MA. He was 91.

As U. S. Surgeon General in the Carter Administration, Dr. Richmond issued the momentous 1979 report Smoking and Health. As Surgeon General he also set targets for the health of the American public with the Healthy People report.

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.

Past, present of flu pandemics examined

50443248 — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:25:53 -0400

The global response to bioterrorism and AIDS is increasing health system capacity in a way also useful if avian flu strikes, according to experts attending an interdisciplinary conference on Asian flus.

The bad news, however, is that vast disparities in health care systems still persist and, despite the expanding capacity in recent years, bird flu could still have a devastating impact.

"I think of what happens if avian flu comes to Lesotho. The mortality and morbidity would just be devastating," said Jim Kim, who heads Harvard Medical School's Department of Social Medicine and serves as the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights in the Harvard School of Public Health.