Laurie Garrett
Senior Fellow for Global Health
Expertise
Global health systems; chronic and infectious diseases; bioterrorism; public health and its effects on foreign policy and national security.
Programs
Global Health Program
Featured Publications
Famine in the Horn of Africa underscores the problems of an international foreign aid community struggling to keep up with its commitments at a time of a falling dollar and rising food prices, says CFR's Laurie Garrett.
Though the United States of America faces its toughest budgetary and economic challenges since the Great Depression, it cannot afford to eliminate, or even reduce, its foreign assistance spending. For clear reasons of political influence, national security, global stability, and humanitarian concern the United States must, at a minimum, stay the course in its commitments to global health and development, as well as basic humanitarian relief. In this report, Laurie A. Garrett makes recommendations for the future of foreign aid under a new presidential administration and Congress.
A discussion of Garrett’s newest Foreign Affairs article:
A flood of public and private money has started to flow to the developing world, funding a vast array of efforts to combat AIDS, TB, malaria, and other killer diseases. Unfortunately, writes Garrett, much of that “is leaking away without result,” doing little to improve basic public health on the ground.
All Publications
Laurie Garrett says the Global Fund's drive to ensure sustainability and efficiency means that it may not be able to meet its commitments to combat disease.
See more in Economics, Global Health, Health and Disease
Laurie Garrett says that as recent events have put the future of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in doubt, a critical, dangerous moment has emerged for all of global health.
See more in Economics, Global Health
Laurie Garrett discusses the mistakes and misjudgments made by government officials in response to the anthrax attacks of 2001 and provides recommendations for what should be done now.
See more in Biotechnology, Public Health Threats, Weapons of Terrorism, Terrorist Attacks
Laurie Garrett says making a superbug that can infect thousands of people is easier than ever and examines if there is anything governments can do to prevent terrorists from learning how to make a devastating bioweapon.
See more in Health, Science, and Technology, Public Health Threats, Weapons of Terrorism
Laurie Garrett discusses the public policy implications of bird flu and bioterrorism.
See more in Global Health, Public Health Threats, Weapons of Terrorism
Laurie Garrett discusses the arrival of man-made bird flu virus and the meaning behind a U.S. government advisory board's request that scientific journals not publish details about the virus's creation.
See more in Health, Science, and Technology, Biotechnology, Public Health Threats, Terrorist Leaders
Laurie Garrett says man-made killer bird flu is now a reality and asks if governments can--and should--try to stop it.
See more in Public Health Threats, Weapons of Terrorism, Terrorist Attacks
Laurie Garrett discusses the tenth anniversary of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks and argues, ""If 9/11 marked the single most powerful moment of American unity since Pearl Harbor, the anthrax mailings ushered the opposite..."
See more in United States, 9/11, Public Health Threats
Laurie Garrett discusses the FRONTLINE documentary, "The Anthrax Letters."
See more in United States, 9/11, Health, Science, and Technology, Global Health, Public Health Threats, Terrorism
Laurie Garrett discusses the tenth anniversary of the post-9/11 anthrax mailings.
See more in 9/11, Public Health Threats
Laurie Garrett says the movie Contagion serves as a warning that a globally coordinated and equitable response to any pandemic is needed.
See more in Health and Disease, Public Health Threats
Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, explores the lasting impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed on disaster preparedness and health policy in the United States. Garrett argues that "all our readiness response depends on well-funded police, well-funded fire departments, well-funded hospitals, well-funded public health infrastructures, and precisely the opposite is where we are going right now." Garrett cautions that U.S. preparedness for a major terrorist attack may be decreasing. "As budgets are being cut at the federal level, the state level, and the local level, we're actually less ready than we were in 2001," Garrett says.
See more in United States, 9/11, Global Health
Famine in the Horn of Africa underscores the problems of an international foreign aid community struggling to keep up with its commitments at a time of a falling dollar and rising food prices, says CFR's Laurie Garrett.
See more in Horn of Africa, Economics, Food Security, Foreign Aid
Missing from the body of literature about 9/11 and the anthrax scare that followed is a sense of what 2001 felt like for those that experienced the events in a very personal way. I Heard the Sirens Scream bridges the divide and offers new insights into the period, presenting its profound implications for public health, mass psychology, governance, scientific integrity, social resilience and cohesion, criminal justice, and America's sense of itself.
See more in United States, Terrorist Attacks
Orin Levine and Laurie Garrett argue that the CIA's staged vaccination program in Pakistan, used to locate Osama bin Laden, has damaged the credibility of legitimate global health efforts.
See more in Pakistan, Intelligence, Global Health
With the UN meeting on AIDS funding this week, CFR's Laurie Garrett says the slow response to the AIDS epidemic was the single biggest failure in public health and argues the need to double funding for new treatments to stop the spread of the disease.
See more in Africa, Global Health
On the heels of the 30th anniversary since AIDS was recognized, the UN General Assembly will meet to discuss the next course of HIV/AIDS funding. CFR Senior Fellow for Global Health Laurie Garrett traces the initial failures to contain the spread of AIDS, and calls on international policymakers to adequately fund the combat of the deadly disease.
See more in Health, Science, and Technology, Global Health, Health and Disease, Public Health Threats
Laurie Garrett and Larry Kramer discuss the thirtieth anniversary of the first diagnosis of AIDS.
See more in Global Health, Health and Disease, Public Health Threats
In the aftermath of Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Global Health Laurie Garrett discusses the health concerns the country faces.
See more in Japan, Energy/Environment, Disasters, Environmental Pollution
Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Global Health Laurie Garrett criticizes NRC chair for sowing panic when he said Japan is understating health risks.
See more in Japan, Energy/Environment, Disasters