
February 2002 From New York University Nobel Laureate, former NIH Head Harold Varmus to outline his vision for 'Science Peace Corps'The AIDS pandemic is only the most noted and urgent of the many health challenges facing citizens in developing countries; others include malaria, drug-resistant tuberculosis, childhood diseases and inadequate maternal and perinatal healthcare. This burden of disease causes the staggeringly high mortality rates among the poor in the Third World, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Public health experts increasingly argue that there is an intrinsic linkage between the health condition of a nation's people and the potential economic growth needed for a nation to develop. They make the case that good health is a necessary predicate to, not result of, economic development. On Thursday, February 28, 2002, Dr. Harold Varmus MD, president and CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in medicine, will deliver the 2nd Annual Arnold J. Schwartz Memorial Health Lecture at New York University's Wagner School for Public Service. Entitled "Globalizing Biomedical Sciences," Dr. Varmus's talk will outline the three significant themes of his vision for a more active approach for tackling the public health challenges faced by the Third World: - creating a "Science Peace Corps" by which newly minted science graduates and senior scientists from developed countries go to those parts of the world now underserved by science and aid in the building of a local science and medical research capacity
- globalizing the "culture of science" and disseminating worldwide vital scientific research and medical knowledge through free Internet-based access to the leading scientific journals
- adopting the recommendations of the December 2001 report "Macroeconomics and Health: Investing In Health For Economic Development" from the World Health Organization, which Dr. Varmus helped author, that calls for, among other things, greater and smarter investments in the public health systems within the developing world as both an end unto itself and as a means to economic prosperity
WHEN: Thursday February 28, 2002; lecture begins at 6:15 pm WHERE: Ben Snow Dining Room,12th Floor of NYU's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library 70 Washington Square South, New York City Press wishing to attend the lecture should contact Ken Brown at 212 998-6808. Requests for interviews with Dr. Varmus should be directed to Christine Hickey of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at 212 639-3573. | |