I had the great honor to meet Paul Farmer this past weekend. Paul gave a talk entitled “Making Medicine Matter: Rethinking Health and Human Rights” as part of the Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture series. This series is sponsored by the Anthropology department at the University of Rochester. This lecture series, founded in 1963, has seen a great number of prestigious anthropologists, including Meyer Fortes, Sidney Mintz, Elizabeth Colson, and Lila Abu-Lughod.

Paul spoke about access to health care being a fundamental human right, following in the footsteps of other great social activisits, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He is an anthropologist and a medical doctor, having received both degrees at the same time from Harvard. He is an activist who puts his money where his mouth is. He doesn’t live in an ivy-covered office and jet around on the lecture circuit. He works in a clinic in rural Haiti and treats the poorest Haitians who have HIV, Tuberculosis, and other maladies that derive as much from political and economic causes as well as epidemiological ones. His book, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, brought his work and his insights to my attention. I read it in an anthropology course on urban poverty but his book is also read in the medical community and by environmental justice advocates. His cross/inter-disciplinary work is something everyone should read.

I had a chance to talk to Paul before he left the lecture. He was rushed, but he took the time to ask what I do and I had time to tell him how much of an influence he had on me and my fellow AU anthropology graduate students. I also was lucky enough to get him to sign my marked up and dog-eared copy of Infections and Inequalities. Overall, an excellent experience!