LadyDreamSpeed

Hi Dr. Farmer, I want to first thank you for all you do in both the fields of Medicine and in Anthropology. My question is this, how do we as providers stand against the movement to further commercialize and privatize healthcare? I'm particularly alarmed by what is happening right now in the UK, in 2010 the NHS had it's highest public approval ratings ever, now it's on the brink of collapse. What is our role in fighting for universal access and how to we move forward?

I have a second question because I'm greedy! I'm an anthropologist/future medical student on the ground in the interior of Northeast Brazil right now where the Zika Virus and associated microcephaly is reeking havoc on an already weak health care infrastructure. We've already seen dozens of cases of babies being left at churches by parents that aren't fiscally or emotionally able to cope with the severe disability. In a time when Brazil's rising star status in the global economy has disappeared and it's politics are shifting directly to austerity driven economics, how do NGOs (ONGs here in Brazil) like PIH fit into the need for providing long term care and support for the thousands of babies born with microcephaly, whose needs will only grow in the comming years?

Thanks, Activist, Anthropologist, and Aspiring Physician, Speed Rogers