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Harvard mobilizes relief fund

Designed to support faculty, staff affected by Haiti quake

By Corydon Ireland

Harvard Staff Writer

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press

People search for survivors under the rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Groups of experts and medical personnel affiliated with Harvard University, which has several institutional ties to the country, have mobilized to assist the devastated region.

Harvard University will create a relief fund for faculty and staff who have been directly affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

The University’s executive vice president, Katherine N. Lapp, announced the fund Friday (Jan. 15), broadening Harvard’s on-campus response to the crisis in the beleaguered Caribbean nation. Members of the Harvard community will be encouraged to contribute to the fund, and any employee struggling with a personal loss from the disaster can apply for financial assistance.

“We want to be sure that we are responding to this catastrophe on a personal level as well as at an institutional level,” Lapp said. “Many members of the Harvard community are coping with this tragedy, and we want to make sure that we are supportive of them.”

Details about eligibility and administration of the fund were being worked out by a Central Administration team.

Additionally, Harvard Human Resources was reviewing paid leave policies to provide affected staff members with more scheduling flexibility and financial support. An early census of Harvard employees revealed there are at least four dozen with direct ties to Haiti.

In addition, Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds posted a letter to students on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Web site, expressing sadness for the people of Haiti, while acknowledging that undergraduates are eager to help.

But for the time being, she wrote, students are better off helping at home rather than heading for the Caribbean.

“The most effective thing that Harvard students can do in the immediate term is to support relief efforts through fundraising and other activities,” said Hammonds, who is also the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies.

In the letter, she mentioned three ways that students can help: Harvard’s Office for the Arts, which is exploring the idea of a benefit event or concert; the Phillips Brooks House Association, which will help to coordinate public service aid for Boston-area Haitian communities; and Harvard’s dedicated Web site for Haitian financial help.

The situation in Haiti remains dire, said Arrietta Chakos, director of the Acting in Time Advance Recovery Project at the Harvard Kennedy School.

In an e-mail Friday, she outlined the first priorities for a ravaged Haiti: water, communications, fuel, and power. All are lifelines that must be in place for relief operations to work in the crucial next several days.

 “The humanitarian response now has to be swift, decisive, and coordinated,” wrote Chakos. “The incoming responders must be self-sufficient, collaborative, and focused on immediate need because the Haitian authorities are not yet able to manage the situation.”

 She called the aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake a “landscape-scale” disaster that only magnified Haiti’s “pre-event systemic vulnerabilities.”

 Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world. Even before the quake, few homes had reliable power, sewage disposal, or safe drinking water.

After water, fuel, and other basics, other needs “must follow close on,” said Chakos, including medical services, emergency housing, and a continuity of Haitian governance.

In the long term, “strengthening the social connections among people is crucial to rebuilding hope and purpose,” said Chakos.  “The disaster literature shows that typically 10 years is the period for a region to recover from catastrophe. Haiti will likely follow this trajectory.”

Longer-term recovery “will emerge with support from responding nations,” she said, “in the form of governance guidelines, social institution building, and development of safe building practices.”

Meanwhile, a common Haitian phrase tells the story:  ”kenbe fem,” which means “hold on” – as in, “Keep the faith, don’t despair, help is on the way.”

Help has raced toward earthquake-shaken Haiti from many nations this week, as well as from groups of experts and medical personnel affiliated with Harvard University, which has several institutional ties to the country. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island nation Tuesday (Jan. 12), radiating shock waves from an epicenter 10 miles southwest of Haiti’s crowded capital of Port-au-Prince.

Harvard President Drew Faust announced today (Jan. 14) a dedicated Web page to make it easier for members of the Harvard community to respond to the crisis.

“Scenes of such suffering remind us of our own humanity, and our natural reflex is to reach out to help,” she said. “The destruction in Haiti has shocked and saddened us all. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people, the men and women who are working to help them recover from the earthquake that has devastated their nation, and the members of the Harvard community who are anxious for word from friends and loved ones living on the island.”

Assistance was en route in other ways as well.

Massachusetts General Hospital has deployed the International Medical Surgical Response Team (IMSuRT). It will go to Haiti within days.

The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is coordinating a roster of medical, surgical, and public health personnel within the Partners HealthCare System who are available for deployment to Haiti.  (Interested volunteers can contact Brian Daly at bdaly1@partners.org.)

Harvard’s Joia Mukherjee left for Haiti Wednesday (Jan. 13). She is chief medical officer of the Harvard-affiliated Partners In Health (PIH), a not-for-profit aid group with community-based clinics in Haiti and eight other countries.

Going to Haiti also is David Walton, an internist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who is associated with PIH and is an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. In 2008, he helped to set up a 54-bed hospital in La Colline in Haiti’s rugged Central Plateau.

Mukherjee and Walton are the vanguard of Harvard-affiliated assistance. Their reports will help focus future relief efforts in the form of supplies and personnel.

Already laboring in a temporary Port-au-Prince field hospital is physicianLouise Ivers, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. She sent a pleading e-mail Wednesday. “Port-au-Prince is devastated,” it said, “lots of deaths. SOS, SOS. … Temporary field hospital … needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.”

Ivers is clinical director in Haiti for PIH, which opened its first clinic in rural Haiti in 1985 and has since opened eight more that are run by PIH’s sister organization Zanmi Lasante, which means “Partners In Health” in Haitian Creole.

PIH also has community-based medical operations in Peru, Russia, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States. The clinics are staffed by local medical personnel as well as by Harvard faculty and students.

The group’s main hospital is L’Hôpital Bon Sauveur in Cange, about 20 rugged miles outside Port-au-Prince. It “experienced a strong shock” from the quake, according to the PIH Web site, “but no major damage or injuries.”

Zanmi Lasante and its satellite clinics already can call on more than 120 doctors and nearly 500 nurses, impressive numbers that are being used to leverage efficient and rapid medical relief for what already was the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

PIH issued a call yesterday for more experienced medical personnel to help in Haiti, especially surgeons who specialize in trauma and orthopedics. Also needed are emergency room doctors and nurses, and full surgical teams, including anesthesiologists, scrub and post-op nurses, and nurse anesthetists.

PIH is employing a two-part strategy to speed medical care to devastated Port-au-Prince, where thousands are believed dead and thousands more hurt. Field hospital sites in the capital city, linked to a supply chain from the Dominican Republic, which shares the island with Haiti, are being used for triage and immediate care. PIH sites in the Central Plateau — two hours from the wrecked capital of 2 million people — are being readied to serve a flow of patients from the capital.

A church in Cange has been converted into a large triage site. There and in Hinche, another PIH medical location, a “steady flow” of injured people from the capital are receiving medical care.

In the capital alone, “tens of thousands” will need medical care, according to the PIH Web site, a situation that makes financial assistance a high priority as well.

“Haiti is facing a crisis worse than it has seen in years, and it is a country that has faced years of crisis, both natural disaster and otherwise,” according to a post earlier this week by PIH executive director Ophelia Dahl. “The country is in need of millions of dollars right now to meet the needs of the communities hardest hit by the earthquake.”

Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at HMS, said that all faculty and students involved with PIH in Haiti are reported safe. But the situation on the ground in Haiti is an “overwhelming tragedy,” he said. “We all share in the shock and grief over yesterday’s devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Our hearts go out to the millions who have been affected, both in Haiti and closer to home.”

Flier also expressed concern that some members of the Harvard community “may be experiencing personal losses, and we want to offer them our compassion and to provide them with the support they may need.” Members of the Harvard community who would like counseling services or referrals are asked to call Harvard’s Employee Assistance Program at 877.327.4278 or to contact their Human Resources representatives.

Other Harvard-related relief efforts are also rolling out. The HHI, a University group of disaster-relief specialists, is working with nongovernmental organizations to assess immediate medical needs and other required assistance, according to spokesman Vincenzo Bollettino. HHI will offer regular updates on its Web site and on Twitter concerning Harvard’s relief partners and affiliated programs and hospitals, he said.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital has dispatched an emergency response team, including HHI’s director of education, Hilarie Cranmer, who is a physician and clinical instructor. The team will work with United Nations and Dominican officials to address the immediate needs of displaced people.

HHI fellow and physician Miriam Aschkenasy, a public health specialist atOxfam America, is also working on Haitian relief. HHI is in touch with Alejandro Baez, a physician and former faculty member at Brigham and Women’s who now runs disaster services in the nearby Dominican Republic. They will assess the needs for further disaster response.

Zanmi Lasante is one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti and the only provider of comprehensive primary care.

It has a 104-bed hospital with two operating rooms, adult and pediatric inpatient wards, an infectious-disease center, an outpatient clinic, a women’s health clinic, ophthalmology and general medicine clinics, a laboratory, a pharmaceutical warehouse, a Red Cross blood bank, radiographic services, and a dozen schools.

Zanmi Lasante employs about 90 community Haitian health workers and serves an estimated 500,000 people in the Central Plateau.

Meat and Cancer: Lecture at the Harvard School of Public Health

HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Department of Nutrition

Meat and Cancer
Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D.
Senior Investigator, Deputy Branch Chief Nutritional Epidemiology Branch Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics National Cancer Institute, NIH

Monday, November 23rd, 2009
12:30-1:20 p.m.
Harvard School of Public Health
Kresge Building, Room 502
651 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts

Contact Colleen Bertrand for more information (617-432-1851, cbertran@hsph.harvard.edu)

www.mocamobile.org AND www.dossia.org

Today at lunchtime I attended an HSPH presentation on www.mocamobile.org (MIT and HSPH developers for global health applications by cellphone/wireless devices that transmit photos and patient info to secure servers) and www.dossia.org (employer-insured systems that collaborated with MIT and HSPH developers - builds in patient incentives to personal responsibility for maintaining and developing personal wellness).

Very promising!

Dr. Leon Eisenberg, Pioneer in Autism Studies, Dies at 87

Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who conducted some of the first rigorous studies of autism, attention deficit disorder and learning delays and became a prominent advocate for children struggling with disabilities, died on Sept. 15 at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 87.

Dr. Leon Eisenberg

The cause was prostate cancer, said his wife, Dr. Carola Eisenberg.

The field of child psychiatry was dominated by Freudian psychoanalysis when, in the late 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Eisenberg began conducting medical studies of children with developmental problems. Working at Johns Hopkins University with Dr. Leo Kanner, who first described autistic behavior, Dr. Eisenberg completed the first detailed, long-term study of children with autism, demonstrating among other things that language problems predicted its severity.

In a similar study among children who were developing normally, Dr. Eisenberg showed that reading difficulties early in school predicted behavior problems later on.

In the 1960s, he performed the first scientific drug trials in child psychiatry, testing stimulants like Dexedrine and Ritalin to soothe the behavior of children identified as “delinquent” or “hyperkinetic.” These studies, which became the basis for drug treatment of what is now called attention deficit disorder, ran counter to psychoanalytic theories on the most effective treatments.

“Leon took a very courageous stand and denounced the way psychiatry treated children, this whole system in which we had a few rich kids and their parents getting psychoanalysis five days a week and still not being cured,” said C. Keith Conners, a professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University. “No one even knew what a cure looked like. He had this conviction that nothing was being done for the bulk of children who needed help, and that we had very little scientific data to guide us.”

Dr. James Harris, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Johns Hopkins University, said that Dr. Eisenberg was “the pivotal person in 20th-century child psychiatry who moved the field from simple descriptions of childhood disorders to actually looking at the science behind both the diagnosis and treatment.”

Leon Eisenberg was born in Philadelphia on Aug. 8, 1922, the eldest child of immigrants from Russia. He earned his undergraduate degree and, in 1946, his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, before taking an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where he developed an interest in psychiatry. He completed his psychiatric residency at Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Towson, Md.

After two years in the Army teaching physiology (Carey incorrectly said psychology), in 1952 he began a residency at Johns Hopkins and his collaboration with Dr. Kanner. In 1967, he took over as chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he continued to publish and, among many other projects, helped formulate and carry out affirmative action policies at Harvard Medical School.

In 1980, he established the medical school’s department of social medicine, with the aim of applying the tools of social science to improving access to and practice of medicine worldwide.

In addition to his wife, a co-founder of Physicians for Human Rights, Dr. Eisenberg is survived by two children from a previous marriage, Kathy and Mark Eisenberg; two stepchildren, Alan and Larry Guttmacher; two sisters, Essie Ellis and Libby Wickler; and six grandchildren.

For two days last week, Harvard lowered its flags to half-staff in honor of Dr. Eisenberg.

In his later years, Dr. Eisenberg became increasingly alarmed at trends in the field he helped establish, criticizing what he saw as a cozy relationships between drug makers and doctors and the expanding popularity of the attention deficit diagnosis.

The diagnosis “has morphed from a relative uncommon condition 40 years ago to one whose current prevalence is 8 percent,” he wrote. “Correspondingly, the prescription of stimulant drugs has gone up enormously. The reasons are not self-evident.”

09/13/2009 Harvard Crimson: 09/12/2009 "Is Eating Animals Ethical?" debate

Why not just email me at Maynard.Clark@GMail.com?

The Harvard Crimson's blog article on yesterday's "Is Eating Animals Ethical?" debate
http://www.flybyblog.com/2009/09/12/peta-debate-on-tolstoy-and-bonzai-trees/#more-4137

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PETA Debate: On Tolstoy and Bonzai Trees

Published by amcleese on Saturday, September 12, 2009, at 9:07PM

There's a lot of irony here. Bullhorns. Resemblances. Soak it in.

Most Harvard students eat meat. And most Americans probably think of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as an extremist group.
You wouldn’t have known it at the debate the Harvard College Vegetarian Society organized this afternoon between Wesley N. Hopkin ’11, a social studies concentrator and member of the Harvard Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society, and Bruce G. Friedrich, vice president of policy and government affairs for PETA.
The most heated dispute concerned our own Harvard University Dining Services. Hopkin praised HUDS: “They are moving in the right direction,” he said. “We can, generally speaking, eat meat or eat meat products with a relatively clear conscience even now.”
Friedrich responded sharply. He noted that HUDS buys eggs from cage-free farms, but said that is the only bright spot. “Eating meat in HUDS when they are doing nothing for farmed animals, and eating meat in the real world, in any restaurant around here,” he said, “for people here who said you do eat meat: that is unethical.” Get the skivvy on Hopkin’s response and more after the jump.
Throughout most of the debate, though a slim majority of the packed Science Center audience admitted to eating meat, Hopkin conceded Friedrich’s arguments about the immorality of being a carnivore in today’s world. PETA seemed downright reasonable.
Hopkin and questioners from the audience rarely presented compelling reasons to dispute the main thrust of Friedrich’s well-supported argument. The PETA leader argued that facts overwhelmingly show that eating meat is bad for the environment, for the world’s poorest, and for the conscious experiences of animals. Instead of disputing Friedrich’s figures, Hopkin and others raised abstract intellectual questions heard in Social Studies 10 and “Justice”: How can we compare animal pain with human pain? And can animals be a part of the social contract?
Friedrich’s argument, by contrast, was direct and sure of its moral clarity. Throughout the event, he peppered his arguments with colorful quotations from celebs and intellectuals alike:
From Paul McCartney: “It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”
From Leo Tolstoy: “Vegetarianism is the root of humanitarianism.”
And from Cameron Diaz, on eating bacon: “It’s like eating my niece.”
Hopkin, the subtle debater, conceded that today’s factory farming practices are “unconscionable, and should not be permitted.” Instead, he wondered whether better farming techniques could ever create a world in which eating meat was ethical. He advocated an approach to animal rights that focused on the social contract instead of utilitarianism, and on leveraging consumer power to work for better farming practices instead of abstaining from eating meat.
During the question and answer session, Harvard’s lofty minds posed provocative questions:
Is it ethically permissible to eat the meat leftovers of your friend sitting across the table at dinner?
How anthropocentric is the social contract, after all?
Cuteness aside, can we kill kangaroos in the barren outback of Australia?
And: is it morally responsible to own a pet—or should you buy a bonzai tree?
Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

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FORMER US PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON APPOINTS Harvard's Dr. Paul farmer as DEPUTY SPECIAL ENVOY FOR HAITI

New York, 3 August 2009 – Continuing his efforts as UN Special Envoy for Haiti, President Clinton today appointed Dr. Paul Farmer as the Deputy UN Special Envoy for Haiti. Dr. Farmer will support President Clinton and be responsible for advancing their work on a day-to-day basis.

“Paul’s selfless commitment to building health systems in the poor Haitian communities over the last 20 years has given millions of people hope for a brighter future for Haiti,” President Clinton said. “His credibility both among the people of Haiti and in the international community will be a tremendous asset to our efforts as we work with the government and people of Haiti to even more to improve health care, strengthen education, and create economic opportunity.”

The Office of the UN Special Envoy for Haiti was created in June 2009 to help advance economic development in Haiti and assist the Haitian Government in implementing its priorities. While announcing President Clinton’s appointment as UN Special Envoy for Haiti, UN Secretary-General Ban stated that “no one is better placed for this mission. He knows the country. He loves the people. They love him. This is the strong wish of the Haitian people and the Haitian Government and myself, as Secretary-General.”

“I am honored to serve as the UN’s Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti,” said Dr. Farmer. “President Clinton’s dedication to improve the lives of Haitians for so many years has been inspiring to me. Since 2005, we have worked together with local governments on the very successful Rural African Initiative which has developed health care systems in Africa. I look forward to working with him and with the Haitian Government and people as they implement their plans for a better future.”

“In Haiti, we welcome the appointment of Paul Farmer as the UN’s Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti,” said President Preval. “Dr. Farmer has been a good friend to the Haitian people for many years. I look forward to working with President Clinton, Dr. Farmer, and all friends of Haiti on our efforts to create new jobs, strengthen essential services, build infrastructure, and enhance the prosperity of all Haitian households.”

Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to improving health care for the world's poorest people and has pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies and successfully shown that quality health care can be delivered in resource-poor settings. He is a founding director of Partners In Health (1987), an international non-profit organization that provides direct health care services and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer began his lifelong commitment to Haiti in 1983 when still a student, working with villages in Haiti’s Central Plateau, determined to bring modern health care to the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. Starting with a one-building clinic in the village of Cange, Farmer’s project has grown to a multi-service health complex that includes a primary school, an infirmary, a surgery wing, a training program for health outreach workers, a 104-bed hospital, a women’s clinic, and a pediatric care facility. Over the past twenty years, Dr. Farmer and Partners In Health have expanded their operations to ten sites throughout the Haiti. His work has become a model for health care for poor communities worldwide with Partners In Health now working in ten countries around the globe.

Dr Farmer holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he is a professor of Social Medicine and the Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is a widely published author of numerous books and articles on health and human rights and social inequality. He is subject of Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder's best seller Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, which chronicles the development of Dr. Farmer's work in Haiti and beyond.

Dr. Farmer is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius award." He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and has recently been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

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Years ago, while I was a first-year graduate student at Harvard, a young vegetarian schoolteacher tried her darnedest to persuade a young Maynard S. Clark to go vegetarian in the tradition of Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet.

At a local church where I worked, we had a "Gather Inn" for professional adults. I was in charge, and we did international dinners prepared in the church kitchen by volunteers. Conversations ensued, and the international 'dining in' at cost (of food/materials) made a great social event in harvard Square.

Two 20-something vegetarian women (one lacto-vegetarian and one ovo-vegetarian) worked on me (one more than the other), and their meals together worked out to be dietary vegan meals.

August 14th is the birthdate of the one who worked most diligently on me.

She moved away from Boston, but her birthdate is recalled every year because 'way back then' I went vegetarian - then vegan.

So that's why August 14th is a VERY SPECIAL DAY for Maynard S. Clark.

Oh, yes: she worked on me in other ways, too, trying to change me.

"You're too formal!"
"Why do you always wear a sport coat and dress slacks?"
"I'm a nonjoiner. why do you have affiliation issues?"
etc.

So now I'm overly casual, seldom wear a sport coat or suit, and don't belong to any churches at all. I'm not sure that I changed for the better; except for my going vegetarian then vegan, I think I was a better person in those days, but that's yet another issue.

Maynard

Wednesday in Longwood

I'm in the middle of a highly productive day in Longwood Medical Area, working in HMS Social Medicine but is very tired

Harvard University Green Tip of the Month - July 2009

A nice green tip from the Office for Sustainability...

----- Original Message -----

From: Harvard Office for Sustainability

This is the campus-wide Harvard University Green Tip of the Month. Having trouble reading this newsletter? Click here to see it in your browser.

Eat Less Meat! Industrial meat production, especially beef, accounts for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions* (from the entire meat production cycle). Pick up some vegetarian ingredients at a local farmer's market, including three near Harvard: Science Center market: Tuesdays 12:30-6pm, until October 27th Allston market: Fridays, 3-7pm Charles Hotel market: Fridays, 12-6pm & Sundays, 11-3pm Restaurant Associates weekly farmer's markets at HMS: Wednesdays, all day, Courtyard Cafe and Elements Cafe (alternating weeks) Mission Hill market: Thursdays, 11am-6pm at Brigham's Cricle (*near HSPH) Or find a market near you: http://www.massfarmersmarkets.org * United Nations (September 2008) "Livestock production alone contributes to 18 percent of the global warming effect - more than the emissions from every single car, train, and plane on the planet. Though livestock production only contributes 9 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, the sector is responsible for 37 percent of methane and 65 percent of nitrous oxide, both potent greenhouse gases." http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm Setting the Record Straight It is healthy to be vegetarian. Studies have shown that vegetarians (who follow a well-balanced, low-fat, high-fiber diet) often have lower incidences of coronary artery disease, hypertension, obesity and some forms of cancer. Your Actions Add Up! If every Harvard affiliate replaced one average daily diet containing meat with one vegetarian meal a week, we would Prevent 14 million pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. That's like taking 1,280 cars off the road! Resources How Meat Contributes to Global Warming (article) Meatless Mondays Edible Boston magazine Slow Food Boston Get Green Tip posters and past Green Tips from our website: green.harvard.edu/green-tip