In fact, it seems to me that making strategic alliances across national borders in order to treat HIV among the world’s poor is one of the last great hopes of solidarity across a widening divide. – Paul Farmer
For me, an area of moral clarity is: you’re in front of someone who’s suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act. – Paul Farmer
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
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
We have to design a health delivery system by actually talking to people and asking, ‘What would make this service better for you?’ As soon as you start asking, you get a flood of answers. – Paul Farmer
So I can’t show you how, exactly, health care is a basic human right. But what I can argue is that no one should have to die of a disease that is treatable. – Paul Farmer
The biggest public health challenge is rebuilding health systems. In other words, if you look at cholera or maternal mortality or tuberculosis in Haiti, they’re major problems in Haiti, but the biggest problem is rebuilding systems. – Paul Farmer
Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody. – Paul Farmer
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
I’ve been working in Haiti 28 years – I thought I’d sort of seen it… I’ve gone through a number of coups, the storms of 2008, I thought, you know, that I’d seen things as bad as they were going to get, and I was wrong. – Paul Farmer
The thing about rights is that in the end you can’t prove what should be considered a right. – Paul Farmer
We’ve taken on the major health problems of the poorest – tuberculosis, maternal mortality, AIDS, malaria – in four countries. We’ve scored some victories in the sense that we’ve cured or treated thousands and changed the discourse about what is possible. – Paul Farmer
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
The essence of global health equity is the idea that something so precious as health might be viewed as a right. – Paul Farmer
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
What the American public thinks is very important to the future of global health. Many people are moved by the idea that there is unnecessary suffering in the world, and we could do a lot to stop it. We have the technologies necessary to stop most of the suffering. – Paul Farmer
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
If you look at people who seek a lot of care in American cities for multiple illnesses, it’s usually people with a number of overwhelming illnesses and a lot of social problems, like housing instability, unemployment, lack of insurance, lack of housing, or just bad housing. – Paul Farmer
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
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
Civil and political rights are critical, but not often the real problem for the destitute sick. My patients in Haiti can now vote but they can’t get medical care or clean water. – Paul Farmer
I mean, everybody should have access to medical care. And, you know, it shouldn’t be such a big deal. – Paul Farmer
