Farmer, Paul (Paul
Edward Farmer), 1959–2022; American infectious disease doctor and
medical anthropologist, b. North Adams, Mass., M.D. and Ph.D. Harvard
University. Farmer was the chair of the Department of Global Health and
Social Medicine and Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard Medical
School. He was also the chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH). Farmer
co-founded PIH in 1987, when he was a medical student. The goal of the
organization was to deliver free healthcare to people in Haiti. A noted
humanitarian and advocate of global health equity, he worked in Haiti,
Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Peru, Russia, and Mexico. In 2012 he became UN special
adviser to the secretary-general on community-based medicine and lessons
from Haiti. In 2020, Farmer and PIH were involved in various efforts
regarding COVID-19. Farmer's many honors included election to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, from
which he received the 2018 Public Welfare Medal, and a John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Farmer won the Aurora Humanitarian prize
in 2021 and the Inamori Ethics Prize in 2022. His numerous writings include
Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (1999),
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on
the Poor (2003), Haiti After the Earthquake
(2011), and Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of
History (2020).
See T. Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (2003).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Medicine: Biographies
