Program Supplement [International Conference on AIDS (14th: 2002: Barcelona, Spain)]

Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, is a medical
anthropologist whose work draws primarily
on active clinical practice: he divides his
clinical time between the Brigham and
Women's Hospital (Division of Infectious
Disease) and a charity hospital in rural
Haiti. His work in anthropology and in social medicine has
focused on infectious diseases disproportionately afflicting the
poor. Dr Farmer heads the Program in Infectious Disease and
Social Change in the Department of Social Medicine. He has
pioneered novel, community-based prevention and treatment
strategies for sexually transmitted infections (including H IV),
drug-resistant typhoid, and tuberculosis in resource-poor
settings.
The medical facility in Haiti directed by Dr Farmer follows over
1500 patients living with HIV; over lo percent of them are
receiving Directly Observed Therapy with Highly Active
Antiretrovirals (DOT-HAART), making it one of the largest
projects of its kind in the developing world. This project has
drawn the attention of physicians, policy makers, and public
health experts around the world who are watching it closely,
since the treatment it uses refutes the widely held opinion that
it is not cost-effective or feasible to use antiretrovirals in
settings of great poverty. Dr Farmer is also engaged in active
advocacy work on behalf of treatment rights for HIV/AIDS
patients. In August 2oo001, he convened a human rights
symposium in rural Haiti that attracted 2000 patients and their
families, as well as others from the community. This meeting
facilitated the writing of the Patients' Declaration of the Right
to HIV Care, the first in the world written by patients in a
resource-poor setting who are actually receiving
antiretrovirals.
Dr Farmer has also written extensively about health and
human rights, and about the role of social inequalities in the
distribution and outcomes of readily treatable diseases. The
author of several books and over loo publications, he is a
professor at Harvard Medical School.
Paulo Roberto Teixeira
Paulo Roberto Teixeira is a dermatologist,
specializing in Public Health and
Epidemiology of AIDS. Dr Teixeira is one of
the pioneers in the fight against the AIDS
epidemic in Brazil. He created the first state
AIDS program in S~o Paulo in 1983, when
just four AIDS cases were known in Brazil. From 1996 to 2000,
Dr Teixeira acted as a Senior Consultant of the Joint United
Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for Latin America
and the Caribbean on development of strategic planning and
support of theme groups. Dr Teixeira has succeeded in
bringing back to Brazil a number of international awards.
With the free and universal distribution of AIDS drugs as part
of the Brazilian Program, kept going thanks to the local
manufacturing of the so-called generic medicines, and
defended implacably by Paulo Teixeira in international forums
and elsewhere, Brazil has attracted worldwide recognition for
the quality of its activities in the AIDS field. It has also
succeeded in obtaining the support of foreign

non-governmental organizations and of an appreciable number
of key official international organizations such as the United
Nations, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization and the World
Trade Organization, as well as of the majority of countries
throughout the world, for Brazil's well-regarded and successful
policy of local production of those drugs considered absolutely
essential for the Brazilian population. Since March 2oo000, Dr
Teixeira has been the Director of the National STD/AIDS
Program of the Ministry of Health of Brazil.
Gra a Machet
Graga Machel was Mozambique's Minister for
Education until 1989 and the chairperson of
the National Organization of Children of
Mozambique, an organization that places
orphans in village homes. She has worked
closely with families in her efforts to
rehabilitate children, has acted to empower Mozambican
women, and has been a major force on behalf of worldwide
literacy.
Ms Machel was a delegate to the 1998 UNICEF conference in
Zimbabwe, is president of the National Commission of
UNESCO, and served on the international steering committee
of the 1990 World Conference on Education for All She was
appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to
chair the Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children.
Ms Machel was the recipient of InterAction's humanitarian
award for 1997, and received a major award from CARE as a
result of her longstanding work on behalf of children.
She is the widow of the first president of Mozambique. She is
currently married to the former President of the Republic of
South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and divides her time between
activities in Maputo, Mozambique, and South Africa.
Julio Frenk
Julio Frenk is the Minister of Health for
Mexico. He took up this post on December i,
2000, when Vicente Fox became the
President of Mexico.
Prior to his present position, Dr Frenk had
served since 1998 as Executive Director in charge of Evidence
and Information for Policy at the World Health Organization, in
Geneva, Switzerland. From 1987 to 1992 he was the founding
Director General of the National Institute of Public Health of
Mexico, and from 1984 to 1987 the founding Director of the
Center for Public Health Research.
Dr Frenk was born in Mexico City in December 1953. He
received his medical degree in 1979 from the National
University of Mexico. At the University of Michigan he obtained
three advanced degrees: Master of Public Health (1981),
Master of Arts in Sociology (1982), and Doctor of Philosophy in
Medical Care Organizations and Sociology (1983).
His written work includes 28 books and monographs, 44 book
chapters, 80 articles in academic journals, and 103 articles in
cultural magazines and newspapers. Among his publications
there are two best-selling books for youngsters explaining the
functions of the human body.

Program Supplement