Mountains Beyond Mountains: One doctor's quest to heal the world

by Tracy Kidder

No one else, not at this time, is treating impoverished Haitians with the new antiretroviral drugs. Indeed, almost no one in any poor country is treating poor people who have the disease. Even some of Farmer’s friends in the Haitian medical establishment have told him he’s crazy to take on AIDS this way in Cange, and certainly many experts in international health would agree. Leaving aside all other objections, the new AIDS drugs could cost Zanmi Lasante about five thousand dollars a year per patient. Nonetheless, Farmer had started some patients on triple therapy. A few months ago, he gave a speech to a group in Massachusetts called Cambridge Cares About AIDS. “Cambridge cares about AIDS,” he told them. “But not nearly enough.” He wondered if he’d gone too far, but afterward, at his suggestion, health workers in the audience and people who themselves had AIDS collected a bunch of unused drugs, and he ended up with enough to treat a few more of his patients here in Cange. He intends to increase those numbers, he says. He and his colleagues back in Massachusetts are working on grant proposals to obtain a larger, more reliable supply. They’ll find the money, he’s told me. “Of course we’ll find the money.”