UC Berkeley Events. (2009, March 31). Paul Farmer: Rethinking Health and Human Rights. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwy22pXrig8

In this online Distinguished Health Leadership Lecture Series organized by the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Paul Farmer discusses community-based health care in poor countries and what strategies can be taken to ensure basic human rights. One of the things that was not always apparent to me was that public health policies are designed with cost-effective approach. (He described cost-effectiveness as the religion of public health.) This plays a significant role in how medical care is delivered in countries with meager public infrastructure. The argument against using expensive medication for poor is that these drugs can be used in other important cases. It is simply not cost-effective to treat drug-resistant cases. That seems very wrong, especially considering that drug-resistant cases arise from mismanagement of medical services, i.e. when patients are moved from one trial to another without properly completing their treatments.

One of the things that I really admire about Dr. Farmer’s philosophy is the idea that standard of care should be uniform and not dependent on a person’s wealth. Therefore, setting low standard of care with the label that that is cost-effective is not right. Instead, policy makers should aim at providing high quality of medical care and work with pharmaceutical industry to bring down drug prices.

Dr. Farmer shared some valuable strategies that potential public health workers can adopt and benefit from. He mentioned that when NGOs from foreign countries work with the public sector, they are able to accomplish far-reaching goals. (I have to research this idea more thoroughly and find out what he meant by “scale” and “rights” as the two main reasons to collaborate with public sector.) He also suggested cutting down consulting fee, which is heavily applied by international agencies.

It was surprising to see that universities that are known for public health research and training have no more than 2% of actual service contributed to real-world work. The lack of implementing research that is conducted in universities is troubling.