The biggest public health challenge is rebuilding health systems. In other words, if you look at cholera or maternal mortality or tuberculosis in Haiti, theyre major problems in Haiti, but the biggest problem is rebuilding systems. – 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 cant get medical care or clean water. – Paul Farmer
It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care. – Paul Farmer
You cant have public health without a public health system. We just dont want to be part of a mindless competition for resources. We want to build back capacity in the system. – Paul Farmer
…existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around the golden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon. In that dance and in that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of the heart and soul — kindness and justice, honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellowman. – Alexander Berkman, What Is Communist Anarchism?