Sign-on Letter in Support of Jim Kim for Obama Global AIDS Coordinator
Dear President Obama,
We come to you as Americans devoted to a new era of American leadership in global health. We include activists, medical students, volunteers and staff from your presidential campaign, and engaged citizens. Your administration presents the best opportunity for initiative and true reform of U.S. foreign assistance for global health. During your campaign, you called on Americans to “rally the world against the common threats of the 21st century”; one of the chief among them, you explained, was disease. Around the globe, treatable illnesses like malaria, tuberculosis, and pneumonia each claim millions of lives every year. We believe that history will judge this age on our response to this issue.
We believe, too, that with visionary leadership in the White House, the United States can lead an international effort to save millions of lives and usher in a new era of global prosperity and security. We are convinced that Dr. Jim Yong Kim is the best person to coordinate global health policy within your administration. Dr. Kim is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in health systems. Along with Dr. Paul Farmer he founded Partners in Health, a not-for-profit organization that has brought high quality health care to more than two million of the world’s poorest people. During the mid-1990s, Dr. Kim was among the first public health experts to argue and prove that it is possible to provide life-saving treatments to patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis or AIDS in poor countries. During his tenure at the World Health Organization, Dr. Kim founded and led the “3 by 5” initiative, a campaign that helped spur private donors, governments and international organizations to increase access to anti-retroviral medicines in developing countries. He currently serves as Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School where he has been the pioneer of Global Health Delivery Science, an important new field that is improving strategies for building health systems in developing countries.
You have the opportunity to choose among many qualified public health experts, but Dr. Kim is among the few who have constantly advocated for a more expansive view of the possible. Only he would be willing to end the practice whereby recipients of aid dollars are allowed to spend gratuitous sums on overhead expenses rather than life-saving interventions. Only he would look beyond the current focus on single diseases to the holistic improvement of national and international health systems. In the tradition of the Marshall Plan, he has demonstrated a unique ability to enlist public support through grassroots organizing and education campaigns detailing the need for American leadership. In a time of great challenges and incredible opportunities, we need visionary leadership and an engaged public. Therefore, we ask that you help further the movement for global health equity by appointing Dr. Jim Yong Kim to coordinate your global health agenda.