Dr. Jim Kim, a man who would cure the world.
tonight, i had the privilege of hearing one of the most optimistic and inspiring speakers. meet dr. jim kim:
once you see past the poetic name and the receding hairline, he's an amazing guy. Dr. Kim, m.d., ph.d. in anthropology, is a harvard professor, former director of the WHO's HIV/AIDS dept, co-founder of Partners in Health, winner of a MacArthur genius grant, and one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2006. for this champion of global health, it is not a stretch to say his work (nearly single-handedly) saves millions of lives per year. he is best friends and partners with Paul Farmer of Mountains Beyond Mountains (which by the way you should read, seriously. read it.) people worship this man. jonny dorsey, stanford dropout to become director of FACEAIDS (founded last year, spread to ~100 college campuses since then), started crying on stage as he was introducing Dr. Kim. and Dr. Kim got a standing ovation before his speech.
how does he do it? by attempting the impossible. seriously. you know that lame saying "shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you'll still fall among the stars"? that should be his epitaph. enter the bacterium:
Dr. Kim's first undertaking was to take on tuberculosis in third world countries. tb is the second most infectious killer in the world (2 million/yr) [dr. kim], following HIV (3 million/yr) and followed by malaria (1 million/yr). it's easily treatable with antibiotics, but what's scary is that poor or partial treatment of the disease can lead to a resistant strain called multi-drug resistant, or MDR. prior to 2002, the WHO's tb treatment programs did not provide any treatment for MDR, and possibly contributed to the evolution of more MDR strains. basically, if you got MDR, you were probably going to die. the treatment for MDR drugs costed $25,000 per patient, and wasn't even 100% effective. it was impossible to treat MDR in third-world countries practically, given the price of the drugs; there just wasn't enough money. not enough money? screw that, said Dr. Kim (*ahem2billioniniraqpermonthitsjustamatterofpoliticalwill*) he called for the WHO to offer these expesive drugs to treat MDR. his opponents called treating MDR "immoral" because the $25,000 could be used elsewhere, to save more basic tb patients or to feed people. Dr. Kim set up a trial program in Peru where he treated MDR patients, paying the full cost of the drugs. he attained 80% cure rates, stunning the world. he convinced the WHO to mobilize to lower drug prices, and today it costs $350 per patient to treat MDR. now patients all over the world can get treatment for MDR. which is a good thing, too, because poor treatment of MDR leads to XDR - extremely drug resistant - that kills with over 90% mortality 25 days after diagnosis. oh brother.
now meet HIV:
now see what it's diong to africa:
ok that is PRETTY CRAJEEEEEE. botswana lost 15 years of life expectancy in 5 years. no wars, not even the bubonic plague can do that. when Dr. kim became director of the WHO's HIV/AIDS department, he was tired of all the discussion and talk about facing HIV, and wanted to deal with it directly. the problem with previous initiatives is that they've set ambitious, good-sounding goals without holding anybody accountable, throwing money around without getting results. without consulting the WHO's donors, and without consulting the health ministries of any nations, he started the "3 by 5" initiative - to treat 3 million patients with HIV cocktails by 2005. impossible! a rather ambitious goal, considering the number of patients being treated in 2003 was 300,000. what was different about this initiative, compared to many other ineffective campaigns in the past, was that he was going to count the number being treated every 6 months, and hold individual countries responsible for falling short of goals. donors were outraged - why declare such an unattainable goal? governments were outraged - they couldn't possibly find the resources to keep up with the timetable. there were calls to fire him, but he kept his job. and the program actually worked - not completely successful, as they only reached 1.7 million by 2005, but they're set to hit 3 million in 2008, a 10-fold increase in the number treated. there is talk of having universal treatment for all infected patients by 2010. isn't that amazing? and it's amazing what a little treatment can do.
before:
after:
i think dr. kim said the pics were taken like 30 days apart or something like that.
the way Dr. Kim speaks is sooo inspiring and empowering. he is so optimistic, and the way he talks he makes all his achievements seem so easy, but not in an overtly humble way. he speaks like, hey if *i* could save so many people, so could you! and once you get that into your head, it's kind of like, wait yeah, if it's so easy for me to go out and save people, why don't i? i have no good reason not to, because i CAN and i SHOULD. he is so incredibly optimistic/idealistic, but in a good way. i asked him afterwards if he ever got discouraged because something was just so damn impossible, and he replied, everything we've done we didn't do because we thought we could do the impossible, we just did it because it seemed right, like it seemed right not to let this person die. success in the larger sense followed, but was still tangential. i can live with that answer.
bill gates and warren buffet are the best thing to happen to HIV/AIDS. the former two have not only thrown ridiculous amounts of money to help fight HIV/AIDS, but have also demanded results. bill gates is not a stupid guy, and knows how to run a company with accountability. it's amazing that stuff is actually happening now. and bill clinton has pledged to stop the transmission of HIV/AIDS in his lifetime. that's always seemed like such an impossibility, but hey, if we can get everybody in the world on HIV drugs, what can't we do?
me and some others with dr. kim:
(i don't know WHAT is going on with my eyes. maybe i was trying to fit in w/ the two squinters next to me.)
dr. kim's closing points was that you don't have to go into medicine to make a difference. "find what you love, do it, and i'll be surprised if you can't find a way to use it to help people." there's a place for MPHs, teachers, businessmen, public health educators, IR/polisci, lobbyists, and, yes, even engineers (e.g. kayak.com is implementing a facebook-type network so that volunteers can easily communicate and share info.)
in any case, i reeeeeeeeally wanna go to africa next summer. jonny dorsey, just a humble undergrad, just like me. hmm.
once you see past the poetic name and the receding hairline, he's an amazing guy. Dr. Kim, m.d., ph.d. in anthropology, is a harvard professor, former director of the WHO's HIV/AIDS dept, co-founder of Partners in Health, winner of a MacArthur genius grant, and one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2006. for this champion of global health, it is not a stretch to say his work (nearly single-handedly) saves millions of lives per year. he is best friends and partners with Paul Farmer of Mountains Beyond Mountains (which by the way you should read, seriously. read it.) people worship this man. jonny dorsey, stanford dropout to become director of FACEAIDS (founded last year, spread to ~100 college campuses since then), started crying on stage as he was introducing Dr. Kim. and Dr. Kim got a standing ovation before his speech.
how does he do it? by attempting the impossible. seriously. you know that lame saying "shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you'll still fall among the stars"? that should be his epitaph. enter the bacterium:
Dr. Kim's first undertaking was to take on tuberculosis in third world countries. tb is the second most infectious killer in the world (2 million/yr) [dr. kim], following HIV (3 million/yr) and followed by malaria (1 million/yr). it's easily treatable with antibiotics, but what's scary is that poor or partial treatment of the disease can lead to a resistant strain called multi-drug resistant, or MDR. prior to 2002, the WHO's tb treatment programs did not provide any treatment for MDR, and possibly contributed to the evolution of more MDR strains. basically, if you got MDR, you were probably going to die. the treatment for MDR drugs costed $25,000 per patient, and wasn't even 100% effective. it was impossible to treat MDR in third-world countries practically, given the price of the drugs; there just wasn't enough money. not enough money? screw that, said Dr. Kim (*ahem2billioniniraqpermonthitsjustamatterofpoliticalwill*) he called for the WHO to offer these expesive drugs to treat MDR. his opponents called treating MDR "immoral" because the $25,000 could be used elsewhere, to save more basic tb patients or to feed people. Dr. Kim set up a trial program in Peru where he treated MDR patients, paying the full cost of the drugs. he attained 80% cure rates, stunning the world. he convinced the WHO to mobilize to lower drug prices, and today it costs $350 per patient to treat MDR. now patients all over the world can get treatment for MDR. which is a good thing, too, because poor treatment of MDR leads to XDR - extremely drug resistant - that kills with over 90% mortality 25 days after diagnosis. oh brother.
now meet HIV:
now see what it's diong to africa:
ok that is PRETTY CRAJEEEEEE. botswana lost 15 years of life expectancy in 5 years. no wars, not even the bubonic plague can do that. when Dr. kim became director of the WHO's HIV/AIDS department, he was tired of all the discussion and talk about facing HIV, and wanted to deal with it directly. the problem with previous initiatives is that they've set ambitious, good-sounding goals without holding anybody accountable, throwing money around without getting results. without consulting the WHO's donors, and without consulting the health ministries of any nations, he started the "3 by 5" initiative - to treat 3 million patients with HIV cocktails by 2005. impossible! a rather ambitious goal, considering the number of patients being treated in 2003 was 300,000. what was different about this initiative, compared to many other ineffective campaigns in the past, was that he was going to count the number being treated every 6 months, and hold individual countries responsible for falling short of goals. donors were outraged - why declare such an unattainable goal? governments were outraged - they couldn't possibly find the resources to keep up with the timetable. there were calls to fire him, but he kept his job. and the program actually worked - not completely successful, as they only reached 1.7 million by 2005, but they're set to hit 3 million in 2008, a 10-fold increase in the number treated. there is talk of having universal treatment for all infected patients by 2010. isn't that amazing? and it's amazing what a little treatment can do.
before:
after:
i think dr. kim said the pics were taken like 30 days apart or something like that.
the way Dr. Kim speaks is sooo inspiring and empowering. he is so optimistic, and the way he talks he makes all his achievements seem so easy, but not in an overtly humble way. he speaks like, hey if *i* could save so many people, so could you! and once you get that into your head, it's kind of like, wait yeah, if it's so easy for me to go out and save people, why don't i? i have no good reason not to, because i CAN and i SHOULD. he is so incredibly optimistic/idealistic, but in a good way. i asked him afterwards if he ever got discouraged because something was just so damn impossible, and he replied, everything we've done we didn't do because we thought we could do the impossible, we just did it because it seemed right, like it seemed right not to let this person die. success in the larger sense followed, but was still tangential. i can live with that answer.
bill gates and warren buffet are the best thing to happen to HIV/AIDS. the former two have not only thrown ridiculous amounts of money to help fight HIV/AIDS, but have also demanded results. bill gates is not a stupid guy, and knows how to run a company with accountability. it's amazing that stuff is actually happening now. and bill clinton has pledged to stop the transmission of HIV/AIDS in his lifetime. that's always seemed like such an impossibility, but hey, if we can get everybody in the world on HIV drugs, what can't we do?
me and some others with dr. kim:
(i don't know WHAT is going on with my eyes. maybe i was trying to fit in w/ the two squinters next to me.)
dr. kim's closing points was that you don't have to go into medicine to make a difference. "find what you love, do it, and i'll be surprised if you can't find a way to use it to help people." there's a place for MPHs, teachers, businessmen, public health educators, IR/polisci, lobbyists, and, yes, even engineers (e.g. kayak.com is implementing a facebook-type network so that volunteers can easily communicate and share info.)
in any case, i reeeeeeeeally wanna go to africa next summer. jonny dorsey, just a humble undergrad, just like me. hmm.