Get Ready for Bioterrorism, Global Health and You
(From Good Morning Eastern, 3/28/05)
Medical and science writer Laurie Garrett pulls no punches when it comes to
talking about the interrelationships that unite and divide the world’s medical,
political and financial professions. In fact, she says, on Sept. 11, 2001, “every
profession – journalism, politics, medicine, law enforcement and…public health
was shaken from its smug American stupor. We can only hope that professionals
in other nations are similarly shaken. Like it or not, professionals and politicians
learned…we Americans live in a world. The problems ‘over there’ are our
problems. Our hatreds. Our threats. And our 21st century challenges.”
Garrett, the only writer to have been awarded all three of the prestigious “Ps” of
journalism – the Peabody, the Polk and the Pulitzer – will address the issues of
global public health, infectious diseases and terrorism with Bioterrorism, Global
Health and You, at 2 p.m., Monday, April 18, in the Eastern Washington
University PUB Multipurpose Room.
After the events of 9/11, “the American ostrich,
so comfortable counting bits of gold among
subterranean grains of sand, was forced to lift its
head out of the ground and look at the global
landscape,” Garrett contends. “And what it saw
was bewildering and terrifying.”
Before the earth-shattering events of 9/11,
Garrett authored The Coming Plague in 1994.
Named “one of the best books of 1994” by the
New York Times Book Review and the Library
Journal, The Coming Plague provided tremendous
insight into a world in which health and biological
issues pose dramatic risks. In 2000, Garrett’s second book, Betrayal of Trust:
The Collapse of Global Public Health, brought home the significance of health
threats and the international inability to appropriately respond to critical health
crises. As examples, she cited plague in India, Ebola virus in Zaire, the collapse
of hospitals and health care in the former USSR, issues of the American health
care system and the threat of biological warfare.
Deeply devoted to her work, Garrett grabbed her camera and headed from the
relative safety of her Brooklyn Heights (New York City) apartment toward
Manhattan when she saw flames shooting out of the World Trade Center and
people pouring across the Brooklyn Bridge by the tens of thousands. She
traveled to Asia to report on the deadly SARS virus, and to Africa and India to
research AIDS.
Garrett graduated from the University California in Santa Cruz with a degree in
biology. She was attending graduate school in the Department of Bacteriology
and Immunology at UC Berkeley and conducting research at Stanford University
when she started reporting on science news at a local radio station. She
eventually dropped her Ph.D. studies to pursue a career in journalism. She has
reported for Pacifica Radio, Pacific News Service, BBC-Radio, Reuters, Associated
Press, National Public Radio, Newsday, Foreign Affairs, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The
Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Current Issues in Public Health.
She has made frequent appearances on national television programs, including
ABC Nightline, The Jim Lerher Newshour, The Charlie Rose Show, The Oprah
Winfrey Show, Dateline NBC, The International Hour and Talkback.
After serving as the first Gates Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on
Foreign Relations, Garrett is now working with the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in Atlanta.
Garrett’s cross-disciplinary expertise qualifies her as the perfect speaker in what
Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Director, Teaching and
Learning Center Larry Kiser hopes will become an annual speakers series at
EWU.
“We’re looking to establish a series of speakers who cut across academic
boundaries – health, science, economics, government, history, sociology – and
Laurie Garrett is a good first speaker with her interdisciplinary work,” Kiser said.
“We’re hoping that she’ll also discuss her work and success as a woman writer in
her field.”
Faculty-facilitators Mary Ann Keogh-Hoss (Health Services Administration) and
Dick Winchell (Urban and Regional Planning) chose Garrett as the speaker, took
the proposal to the T&LC Board of Governors for approval, and invited her to
EWU.
Keogh-Hoss, Winchell and the Teaching and Learning Center have encouraged
faculty to attend monthly book club meetings to discuss Garrett’s bestselling
books and to participate in an interdisciplinary project team to lead the campus
preparation for the writer’s visit. Kiser said Cindy Cutler and Jim Hanegan, who
team-teach biology courses, organized a group of students who have been
showing films such as Outbreak (starring Dustin Hoffman) on campus to
promote student interest in the global health and bioterrorism subjects.
Garrett is scheduled to connect with honors biology students when she visits
their classrooms on the morning of her presentation.
Laurie Garrett’s presentation is cosponsored by the Teaching and Learning
Center, Spokane Regional Health District, EWU Health Services Administration,
Urban and Regional Planning, EWU Foundation, Graduate Studies and Women’s
Studies.
[For more information, contact the Teaching and Learning Center at 359-4305
or email hbergland@mail.ewu.edu.]