Member News
Posted on February 20, 2014
By Jeremy Barnicle
Editor’s note: Jeremy Barnicle is chief development and communications officer at aid organization Mercy Corps. He has just visited Lebanon, where he met with a number of Syrian refugee families. Follow @JeremyBarnicle on Twitter. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.
Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) — Syria needs lots of things right now. One of them is George Clooney.
Let me explain. As the Geneva II talks this week made clear, there is no end in sight for the bloody three-year war in Syria. In the meantime, more than 100,000 people have been killed, the country is Read More “Why Syria Needs George Clooney”
Posted on October 18, 2013
By Jeff Guderian
You could say I’ve been involved in neglected tropical diseases and public health since grade school. I was 6 years old when we moved to Quito, Ecuador, where my dad, a medical pathologist, was put in charge of doing mobile medical care for a local hospital. Using a medically equipped van, he and his crew would go to the rural areas of Ecuador to do public health. During the day they would see patients, and at night they’d show reel-to-reel Disney health videos in Spanish, followed by a gospel message by the local pastor.
I would accompany dad on these Read More “The Eradicator”
Posted on October 18, 2013
By Kathleen Braden
When a confirmed infectious disease pandemic breaks out, Seattle Pacific University’s emergency team swings into action, even if the outbreak is 7,000 miles away in Hong Kong. I participated in this type of campus plan when SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) began to move worldwide in 2003. Why was such a cautious response necessary?
The answer is that we know in today’s world, an infected person can travel around the globe in 36 hours. As real-time distance has diminished, global health has become … well, global. Even when someone is not directly impacted by an illness, the cost of poor Read More “Global Health is Our Health”