Laurie Garrett

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de noviembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

Laurie Garrett, periodista ganadora del Premio Pulitzer, celebra a los trabajadores esenciales desde la azotea de su edificio de apartamentos, uniéndose a un ritual de Nueva York que se lleva a cabo todos los días. Credit Joshua Bright para The New York Times

MundoAmérica, , ,

Le dije a Laurie Garrett que mejor se cambiara el nombre a Casandra. Ya todos la llaman así de cualquier manera.

Ella y yo estábamos “Zoomeando” (ya podemos usarlo como verbo, ¿cierto?) y sacó un libro de 2017, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes. Ahí se menciona que Garrett, una periodista ganadora de un Premio Pulitzer, fue profética no solo en cuanto al impacto del VIH, sino también al hablar sobre la aparición y la propagación mundial de patógenos más contagiosos.

“Soy dos veces Casandra”, dijo Garrett.

También es mencionada prominentemente en un reciente artículo de Vanity Fair que escribió David Ewing Duncan sobre “las Casandras del coronavirus”.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaInternacionalSalud Pública, , , ,

On this date 17 years ago, I was covering the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus for several months as it spread across Asia, eventually reaching 37 countries, sickening 8,098 people and killing 774 of them.

So, as I read the first reports of a cluster of animal-market related illnesses, with the first patient exhibiting symptoms of pneumonia as early as December 12, 2019, I had a chilling sense of déjà vu. By New Year's Eve, it was obvious something akin to SARS -- as it turns out, the Wuhan coronavirus is in the same family of viruses as SARS and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) -- was unfolding in China.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaInternacionalSalud Pública, ,

The Ebola epidemic now raging across three countries in West Africa is three-fold larger than any other outbreak ever recorded for this terrible disease; the only one to have occurred in urban areas and to cross national borders; and officially urgent and serious. At least 1,090 people have contracted the awful disease this year, though the epidemic's true scope is unknown because of widespread opposition to health authorities in afflicted Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

This week, 39-year-old physician Sheik Umar Khan -- labeled the country's hero for his brave leadership of the epidemic fight -- was hospitalized with Ebola, adding yet another public fear: that even the doctors cannot escape the disease.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

This week, the world is learning that on August 21, Syria's Assad regime attacked civilians living on the outskirts of Damascus, killing at least 355 of them, including many small children. According to Vice President Joe Biden, there is "no doubt" that chemical weapons were used by the regime -- and not, as the Assad government has claimed, by rebel forces.

The victims suffered terrible and painful deaths. Many experts are concluding that most likely a nerve agent such as sarin was deployed. Sarin is a type of organophosphate (OP), a class of chemicals used for making herbicides, insecticides and nerve gases.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública

The reaction from public health workers was understandably fierce when the Guardian reported last week that the CIA had staged a vaccination campaign in an attempt to confirm Osama bin Laden’s location by obtaining DNA from his family members. We recognize the importance of the mission to bring bin Laden to justice. But the CIA’s reckless tactics could have catastrophic consequences.

The CIA’s plot — recruiting a Pakistani doctor to distribute hepatitis vaccines in Abbottabad this spring — destroyed credibility that wasn’t its to erode. It was the very trust that communities worldwide have in immunization programs that made vaccinations an appealing ruse.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Concern about radiation exposure has been rising in Japan as nuclear experts struggle to contain the cores of at least three nuclear reactors and a spent nuclear fuel facility at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Details of the Fukushima accidents remain sketchy, and it will likely be months before the true scope of radiation release will be known, both in terms of which isotopes have escaped containment and at what levels. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, radiation levels following Monday’s reactor explosion reached 100,000 microsieverts per hour, four times the maximum allowed by the I.A.E.A., and more than 100 times the normal radiation exposure per person, per year.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública, , ,

Here's a concept you've probably never heard of: "viral sovereignty." This extremely dangerous idea comes to us courtesy of Indonesia's minister of health, Siti Fadilah Supari, who asserts that deadly viruses are the sovereign property of individual nations -- even though they cross borders and could pose a pandemic threat to all the peoples of the world. So far "viral sovereignty" has been noted almost exclusively by health experts. Political leaders around the world should take note -- and take very strong action.

The vast majority of repeated avian flu outbreaks the past four years, in both humans and poultry, have occurred in Indonesia.…  Seguir leyendo »

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As I describe in my Foreign Affairs article "The Challenge of Global Health" (January/February 2007), we find ourselves in a paradoxically perilous moment. Health philanthropy that just five years ago witnessed "large" donations in the tens of millions now routinely hears of awards exceeding $200 million, targeting single projects. A sense of urgency, both genuinely driven by expanding pandemics and politically propelled by a wealthy-nation public that demands immediate results, is pushing money into the coffers of poor nations' ministries of health and a vast array of nongovernmental and faith-based humanitarian organizations. But on the ground, where the health needs are the greatest, decades of neglect have rendered hospitals, clinics, laboratories, medical schools, and the pool of health talent dangerously deficient.…  Seguir leyendo »