Medicines are increasingly the product of complex supply chains, introducing vulnerabilities to their reliability and safety. CFR Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett lays out how G8 and G20 nations can help to remedy the drug safety crisis.
Interest and political will for universal health coverage is growing across the world. Through risk-pooling, medical care can be made accessible and affordable in poor and emerging-market countries.
An e-newsletter produced by CFR's Global Health Program looking at the Obama administration's Global Health Initiative, the swine flu backlash, and the dangers ahead for Haiti, as well as a number of other timely issues.
Laurie Garrett and Dana March point out that vaccinations against influenza do not mrerely protect the population from the virus itself but that they have significant long term health benefits that should not be ignored.
Authors: Laurie Garrett, A. Mushtaque R. Chowdhury, and Ariel Pablos-Méndez The Lancet
"The world community is at a crucial juncture" in their implementation of better health coverage, write Laurie Garrett, A. Mushtaque Chowdhury and Ariel Pablos-Méndez.
CFR Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett says President Barack Obama's agriculture development and food security initiative holds promise, but it must focus on how to assist women, who are responsible for the majority of agricultural work in Africa.
Authors: Laurie Garrett and Kammerle Schneider Center for Global Development
Laurie Garrett and Kammerle Schneider discuss the use of antibiotics in feed animals, and its contribution to the rise of antibiotic resistant pathogens.
CFR's Laurie Garrett says a number of factors delayed the World Health Organization from declaring swine flu a global pandemic, including internal politics and concerns about flaws in the alert system.
Laurie A. Garrett argues that in handling pandemics, "governments should only set up action and threat assessment systems that are flexible, and useful."
This Working Paper, a contribution to the aids2031 project, focuses on the future of donor financing for HIV prevention and treatment programs and makes recommendations for what the donor community and national governments can do now to build a foundation that ensures steady, long-term funding for HIV/AIDS and alleviates the impact of future challenges.
CFR Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett says the recent Davos economic forum failed to provide any blue print for reconciling the financial crisis and development aid needs. She predicts donor nations will "face tough sells, trying to convince their voters that it is vital to spend money feeding starving masses abroad."
CFR health expert Laurie Garrett says the start of a new U.S. administration amid a global economic crisis offers an opportunity to reform the system for delivering foreign aid.
Authors: Kammerle Schneider and Laurie Garrett Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
Kammerle Schneider and Laurie Garrett argue that "there is a need to return to the foundations of the Alma Ata Declaration signed thirty years ago with the goal of providing universal access to primary healthcare."
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.
CFR Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett writes that the United States cannot afford to reduce its foreign assistance spending, even though it faces its toughest budgetary challenge since the Great Depression.
Authors: Richard C. Holbrooke and Laurie Garrett Washington Post
Richard Holbrooke and Laurie Garrett, write about the concept of “viral sovereignty,” an “extremely dangerous idea” that asserts that deadly viruses are the sovereign property of individual nations. Fueled by self-destructive, anti-Western sentiments, this concept is slowly gaining traction and poses a real threat to global health.
Laurie Garrett argues that our focus in the fight against AIDS should not be to create a multibillion dollar industry that only treats the disease. Instead, our resources need to be geared towards finding a long-term cure that can stop the spread of the virus permanantly.
In this video clip and accompanying article from Voice of America, Laurie Garrett connects the lessons learned from the swine flu panic in 2009 to today's outbreak of H7N9.
Map: Vaccine-Preventable Outbreaks
This interactive map visually plots diseases that are easily preventable by inexpensive and effective vaccines. The Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations has been tracking news reports on these outbreaks since the fall of 2008.
More About Laurie Garrett
"I Heard the Sirens Scream: How Americans Responded to the 9/11 and Anthrax Attacks" was awarded both Gold (Science) and Silver (Current Affairs) medals in the national eLIT Awards competition in May 2012.