An Open Letter to Paul Farmer

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-05-21 02:31:00 UTC
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(photo credit: e453753)

Dear Dr. Farmer,

I think I can safely speak for the global health community here when I say that you are a hero to us. Your work has inspired an entire generation to get involved in global health.

We have now learned from the Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, and Josh Ruxin that you are seriously considering taking a job as the Director of US Foreign Assistance and Administrator of USAID. This is a huge job; two huge jobs in fact. It could radically change the structure of US foreign assistance.

Dr. Farmer, please don't do it.

You are doing amazing work at Partners in Health. PIH has become a powerful voice for the poor and a force for supporting community transformation. That's work with impact - work that matters. Health work.

There is work that matters with the US government, too. But it's going to be a long, slow slog through a thicket of bureaucracy and entrenched interests. USAID and the State Department are full of brilliant people who haven't been able to change the organizational culture of these old bureaucracies.

Your ideas matter. You can mentor the State Department and USAID, and guide their efforts to change. But you don't have to be the one in the trenches. They can find an experienced bureaucrat with a power base in the government to do that.

It will be years before we can untangle the mess we've gotten US foreign assistance into.

You have better ways to spend those years. Global Health can't afford to lose you. Stay with us, fighting for the poor, battling MDR TB and HIV and making good health care available to everyone who needs it.

Sincerely,

Alanna Shaikh

Alanna Shaikh
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