Should I Send My Kids Back To School? Renowned Scientist Dr. William Haseltine Has Advice for Families

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

[ Music ]

Female : Welcome to Conversations on Health Care with Mark Masselli and
Margaret Flinter, a show where we speak to the top thought leaders
in health innovation, health policy, care delivery, and the great minds
who are shaping the hea lth care of the future.

This week Mark and Margaret speak with Dr. William Haseltine , Chair
and President of ACCESS Health International , a global think tank
dedicated to expanding quality care to all people , a renowned
scientist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist . His la test books are must -
haves for families grapping with this pandemic, A Family Guide to
Covid: Questions & Answers for Parents Grandparents and Children ,
and a Covid - 19 Back to School Guide, two important resources.

Lori Robertson also checks in, the Managi ng Editor of F act C heck.org
looks at misstatements spoken about health policy in the public
domain, separating the fake from the facts . We end with a bright idea
that's improving health and wellbeing in everyday lives. If you have
comments, please e - mail us at [email protected] or find us on
Facebook , Twitter , or wherever you listen to podcast. You can also
hear us by asking Alexa to play the program . Now stay tuned for our
interview with Dr. William Haseltine here o n Conversations on Health
Care.

[ Music ]

Mark Masselli: We ’re speaking today with Dr. William Haseltine renowned scientist ,
philanthropist , and president of the global health think tank ACCESS
Health International, built on the vision that all people in the world
deserve high quality affordable health care. He's also the founder of Human Genome Sciences and serves on the advisory boards of the
Brookings Institution and th e Council on Foreign Relations.

Margaret Flinter: A former professor at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Haseltine founded
Harvard's HIV / AIDS and Cancer Research Institutes . He has written
over 200 peer reviewed articles and many books including his latest, A
Family Guide to Covid : Questions & Answers for Parents ,
Grandparents, and Children and a Covid - 19 Back to School Guide . He
was named one of Time M agazine's 25 most influential global
business executives . Dr. Haseltine , welcome to Conversations on
Health Care .

Dr. William Haseltine: Thank y ou. It's a pleasure to be here.

Mark Masselli: Yeah , yo u know I think our listeners know that you're a scientist and
entrepreneur, health innovator, and global health advocate. You
chaired the Global Health Summit in Wuhan, China in October of last
year, sort of gathering some of the leading scientists in the world. I
assume little d id you know what was to come just a few months later

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

as Wu h an became the epicenter of the outbreak for COVID - 19. Timing
is everything. I'm sure you must stay up at night sometimes just
thinking what if that was a couple of months la ter . But I'm wondering
as someone who is part of this larger global scientific community
seeking to prevent such catastrophes like COVID - 19, how did we fail
both as a country and sort of globally in our ability to prevent this one
or to better control it , h ow could we have addressed the response
more effectively?

Dr. William Haseltine: I'm the chair of the US - China Health Care Summit , t hat is an
organization that was created as China reached out to the United
States to help it address its issues with SARS. In particular, it drew
upon the expertise at Harvard School of Public Health and many of my
former colleagues there. From that they would send their health
experts from all over the country for education and learning sessions.
Many of the people who are ma naging the COVID epidemic in China
were trained at Harvard, specifically for that. They even went so far as
to give courses to the Central Party School , so there has been a very
close relationship.

The other thing I would say about Wu h an and when I think a bout
Wu h an, I'm really sad. Wuhan is a lovely city. It's a garden city. It ’s a
big city . There are three rivers that come together . It's in the center of
China at the Yangtze River . It’s got mountains, it's got forest s, it’s just
a beautiful city. That's w here the Sun Yat - s en revolution began. It's
where all LEDs come from and they know it, because at night the
whole place is lit up. It's just sad for me because the head of my
foundation is from Wuhan. He lost three grandparents in three weeks
in January, a nd couldn't go to their funerals. I was in touch on a daily
basis with what was going on in Wuhan in the early days.

Let's transit from that to what's gone wrong in the United States.
Th i ngs don't have to go wrong , t here's nothing inevitable about
what's h appened in the United States. China had a big epidemic f irst
in Wuhan, about 80,000 people got infected in Wuhan, and about
4000 people died. The numbers outside of Wu h an and Hubei province
are virtually negligible. Maybe in their number no more than 100 t o
200 people infected , that says something right away they contained it
to Wuhan. Now, when I think of the history, everybody hears oh the
Chine se covered it up, they did this, that, and the other thing . It is
true that the Wu h an authorities covered it up for the first few weeks
because they were goi ng to have a big party congress. It was a big
mistake. They got fired . W hen the central government heard abou t it,
they shut the whole place down.

If you compare the US and the Chinese current epidemic , there's just
no comparison. On a daily basis a thousand p eople plus in the United
States get infected or reported to be affected. In China, it ’s no more

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

than 30. When you look at the number of deaths , it ’s over a thousand
a day in the US . It ’s zero to three in Chi na. That's an enormous
difference. With the tools we have , not the ones we're anxiously
waiting for , you can squish this epidemic down to close to zero. I'm
actually writing a piece right now where we analyze how they did
that. I'll give you an example of how they did that.

I have a good friend in a senior position , an American who traveled
from Frankfurt to Shanghai. There was one person in the flight who
had symptoms. Everybody in the plane got on their cell phone a note,
show up downstairs tomorrow morni ng, you're going to be going into
mandatory quarantine for up to 14 days from the time you stepped
off the airplane . A car picked them up, hazmat clad, took them to a
hotel where they were in separate rooms for the 14 days. They didn't
see another human be ing who wasn't hazmat clad, and the only one
they did see came to clean their room once a day. In that story, there
is no test. There's wonderful contact tracing and mandatory
controlled isolation. They had to disinfect their feces and their urine,
somethi ng we don't even think about , but we know the virus c an be
transmitted by sewer gas. That's the detail that they have, that's how
you do it. It's so far from what we do .

E ven if we had the right leadership say you got to protect yourselves ,
we just aren’t simply prepared to execute at that level . The Europeans
did a pretty good job. They had a big epidemic. They didn't take it
seriously at first, then they realize they had to . T hey force d people to
stay at home. They force d people to wear masks . If you went out in
France, and it wasn't your hour to be at the grocery store, you had
$1,000 fine or more. The second time you might go to jail. We could
do that , but we didn’t do it. W hat did they do? They push ed the
epidemic down to not down to zero a day, a coupl e of hundreds a
day , and they're getting the infection back because you got to really
push it down all the way.

They're going to have a big problem this fall, and it's already showing
up. You have to remember one person started this all epidemic . If you
ha ve a hundred people a day, each one of those can start the
epidemic and that’s just the people you're catching. It ’s not the
people who are really contagious even. Wh en I say you need a good
leader in war time or any crisis, one who's clear, one who is cre dible,
compassionate , those are all things that you need in a leader, and we
don't have that. Our leader is incredible , and he terrifies his political
party to follow his nutty line. It is horrified to see these people who I
know, know better. They're educ ated at our universities. They were
my students. They know better , but they're terrified for their political
lives .

I'll give you one final number . M ore people have died in the United

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

States than got infected in China. When I say that, most people say we
c an't believe the Chinese numbers. Well , I can see Chinese reality. I
see my people who work for me going to movie theaters, going to
restaurants, showing up at our offices to work . T hat's , I think , a long
answer to your question, but it covers a good chunk of ground.

Margaret Flinter: Well, we appreciate that . B ut D r. Haseltine we are -- though it takes
my breath away to say it , we ’re approaching 200,000 deaths from
COVID - 19 in the United States. We have this kind of looming date that
is already here about the decision about whether to send kids and
teachers back into school buildings that were not designed or are not
equipped for this level of threat. You wrote this book, a Family Guide
to Covid : Questions & Answers for Parents , Grandparents, and
Children , to give people something they're really craving , s ome clear
guidelines for navigating these uncharted waters. What insights might
our listeners gain from your book?

Dr. William Haseltine: Well, the book is actually kind of -- it's constructed in an interes ting
way , and the surface is pretty simple , but there's links that can take
you right down to the primary source. If you really want to know what
all the experts have actually written , you can just link yourself right
through. The other thing about th is bo ok is it's a living e - book. You
buy one and every time you go back it should be updated.

Margaret Flinter: Nice

Dr. William Haseltine: We're continually updating and that's wonders of modern publishing.
I'll give you an idea of why that's important. In the first book, Family
Guide, we changed about 25% of the questions and answers. Here's
an example, if I'm pregnant am I at a higher risk? When we wrote it ,
the answer was no. In the second edition, the answer is yes. Why ?
More data . If I'm pregnant , if I do catch COVID I’m getting seriously ill
higher , t he answer originally was no. It's now yes . Y ou've got to
change as more knowledge comes in and knowledge is just pouring in
from all over the world. I think this e - book format, a living e - book that
continually adapts to understanding new knowledge .

Let me get to the heart of your question , b ecause we failed so
miserably in controlling the epidemic , f irst thing to realize is a
pandemic is local it ’s like the weather. We're used to looking outside
or asking Alexa or asking Siri about the weather all the time. Think of
COVID like a lethal weather. If there's a hurricane and the analogy is
more than 25 people a day in your area getting infected , you hunker
down in the basement and you don't even think about going ou t with
your kids , so don't send your kids to school if you're in a red zone. We
have maps and we give you descriptions of how to find what your
level of infection is in your zip code , in your county. Know what that is
and multiply by a hundred to know what your chances are of
encountering somebody who's contagious. The reason I say by a

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

hundred is we miss 90% of people in the way we te st. P eople who are
infected contagious for about 10 days , so if t here are 10 people in
your county, there is thousand times 10 people walking around
contagious that your kid or you may infect.

Mark Masselli: I want to pull the thread on that hyper local levels that you're looking
at, because you've also writte n a companion book for families, Covid
Back to School Guide, which I think is perfectly timed because you're
really saying that it's really about this local environment. I think what
we're seeing now, at least with the older kids who are in college,
we're seeing already a couple of schools who have said, l ook at , we've
got to postpone this. It's too much partying going on or whatever.
Some schools have done it. But I want you to really talk to the parents
who have g rammar e lementary h igh s chool children and really
approach it in terms of keeping track of the data. There are older
teachers who come in , w hat’s generally your advice to parents right
now who are really making a Solomon like decision ?

Dr. William Haseltine: Right, and they are making it with a lot of different kinds of conflicting
pressures across a very broad spe ctrum of capability. Economic
capability , can they afford daycare , are they sending their kids to
public or private school . First one is know your community , know
what the weather is outside, know the number of people that are
getting infected daily. If yo u're in a red zone, do not send your kid to
school. If you are in an orange zone, do not send your kid to school.
That might not be the advice the CDC gives. It’s the advice I give based
on really practical understanding of what the chances you or your kid
will meet somebody who's contagious. No matter what precautions
you take, you're likely to get infected.

Then in a yellow zone where it is still possible to encounter somebody
who's contagious, then you'll make two other judgments. The first
one is very c lear. Am I in a red or orange zone? I don't send the kid to
school. I don't care what they say they can do to protect your kid they
can. The second th ing is, is anybody in my family, myself, my child or
anybody living in the household at high risk for cont racting and
getting ill if they do contract it? Is somebody obese ? D oes somebody
have asthma ? Does somebody undergoing cancer therapy ? I s
somebody over 75 ? You make that as your second judgment. If it's a
yellow zone the higher the risk that somebody is at risk for infection
and disease, the less likely you should be to send your kid to school.

The final thing is, what are they doing to protect my child? There's an
enormous range. There was an article that came out on The Boston
Globe analyzing all the thin gs the high end private schools in New
York are doing. All schools should be doing that . B ut you and I know
that we've under resourced our public education. A lot of the
classrooms are overcrowded. When you child ’s life is at stake you

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

should know who's in that school. There are hardworking dedicated
people, but not all of them . Y ou are putting your child in their care to
save them from a lethal disease that could get you and your family .
E specially in poor areas are not the safest environments even when
th ere's no disease. It's a terrible quandary that we got ourselves into
because we did not control this epidemic .

Then when you re - congregate it pops up again . That’s what's
happening in these universities, these colleges around the country .
It’s going to be like popcorn popping. We've just turned to first pops.
Wait until a lot of people go back to school . People are going to be
upset when their kids have to come home from school and can't go
back. The guidelines , I think , are clear, the problem is clear too .

Margaret Flint: Well , we so appreciate you r sharing your opinions with us. One of
them really is, as you just mentioned about college and university,
we've seen what already happened where parents drop their kids off
and then kind of had to go back and p ick them up in a couple of
states. I guess the question is, is it really possible for residential
universities and colleges to open up safely or is this really a pause
here? The pipeline of getting people through for all of our
professions , it’s a big loss to close things down for a year. What are
you saying to your academic institutions at the college and university
level about reopening this year?

Dr. William Haseltine: Initially , most people don't address the need for young people to have
sex , and we don 't talk about it with COVID. But what are young
people doing getting together? That is something you have to look at
and you look at really clearly . With AIDS, it was a lethal event. Now it
might be lethal too just to hold hands. That's a lot scarier . Y ou put
young people together and they can't keep themselves apart, they
can't do it , and w e have to recognize that. You can say all those crazy
fraternity guys , well , it's not just the fraternity guys, it's those , I can
guarantee you , it ’s those nerds too. Th ey have the same urge s that
everybody else has , and that is why it’s especially for the high schools.
I've talked to a lot of friends when writing these books, and I think
maybe the funniest one is that my 17 year old is convinced COVID is a
plot to keep h im from his girlfriend , and that's how it feels.

Mark Masselli: I hear from my 18 year old all the time. We're speaking today with
William Haseltine, renowned scientist, philanthropist and president of
the global health think tank , ACCESS Health Internatio nal . He's
founder of the Human Genome Sciences . He ’s written over 200 peer
reviewed articles and many books and his latest, a Family Guide to
Covid: Questions & Answers for Parents , Grandparents, and Children .
We've had a number of guests on the show who ’v e really been
speaking about this accelerated pace of research and scientific
discovery that's associated with this pandemic. You yourself were

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

really on the forefront of genomic research that led to the
development of drug protocols now used to control HI V and AIDS. I'm
just wondering how you look at , one, the vaccine development , and
then the second, what are the unintended discoveries that might be
coming out of all of this research foundational level of new
disco veries that might be out there?

Dr. Willi am Haseltine: For me, it's like a summary of all the things I've done in my career,
from fundamental molecular biology right through to public
communication, and the interaction between universities and
pharmaceutical companies, drug development, etc. I de veloped drugs
for infectious diseases . I developed the drug to protect us from
anthrax attack , and actually that was the first drug following 9 / 11 that
our new legislation allowed us to do. We had legislation in place . They
made it possible from idea to FD A approval in two years. Yeah, I don't
know if that's warp speed , but it's pretty darn quick , because we put
in a whole pathway for accelerated development that would protect
us against bio weapons for which w e had no defense.

It was my post office that go t attacked. I used to teach a course on
anti chemical biological warfare. I know about this stuff . P ut together
a group and in two years we had a drug , had it approved to protect us
against anthrax , so I've been here and seen how it's done. But
vaccines ar e really a little bit different category from most drugs , and
the reason for that is you're treating people who are fully healthy and
young people, old people, and who is most vulnerable to this disease
are the older people . But it’s also a special problem because this gets
in through your nose . But anybody who's fought AIDS hand - to - hand
like I have for a long time comes to respect the virus . The natural
history of HIV it gets in you, you make a huge immune response, T -
cell , B - cell every kind of cell and yo u don't stop it. The question there
was why do you think a vaccine is going to stop it? But we still , 35
years later , have not figured it out .

How about COVID? The virus is a c oronavirus. We know they have a
special trick . They get into you and a year late r th e same guy comes
back and get s you again and gives you another cold . That's nature. I
can tell you if you're an immunologist and you look at what's
happened to the people who are infected with this virus, it's growing.
If you look at SARS , there's nine different proteins we already know
about that mess with your immune system. Some of the m mess with
in two or three different ways. The one thing that we don't have is the
35 years of research that we have on HIV / AIDS or c oronavirus , w e just
didn't do rese arch on c oronaviruses . W e had a brief flurry around
SARS and then people couldn't get funded anymore to do the work.

How does each one of these a t least nine and probably 12 viral
proteins mess with your immune system ? W hat does that tell us

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

about the immu ne sys tem and how it controls itself? HIV taught us
fundamental things about how cells do things and viruses just adapt
to that. It turns out that the AIDS virus has a special way of getting its
messenger RNAs from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. There's a p rotein
that the virus makes that actually attaches to signals. It's a whole level
of regulation . W e had no clue of it. We'll get the same harvest when
you go deep into these viruses.

I'll give you another puzzle. When you do a PCR test you're measuring
gen ome RNA, and one of the big puzzles is you can measure genome
RNA for many weeks after infection, but you can't find viruses more
than 10 days afterwards. What's going on ? They can't be detritus RNA
sort of fragments , because they don't last very long. The se things
keep on going . This is a mystery. The way we test is cockamamie. We
use a very expensive research oriented therapeutically oriented test
to screen. There's only a short period of time when you make enough
virus that you're contagious. You don't n eed the most sensitive
instrument in the world , PCR . Y ou can do that with something
equivalent to a 5 minute , 10 minute pregnancy test. They should co st
50 cents to take 15 minutes. E verybody takes it every day if they
want , when they go to school . Why don 't we have those? We could
have made them long ago . I n fact we can produce 100 million a day.
Those are what we should have , so you spit on a little card and you
check 15 minutes later of the color if you're infected or not. That's
coming. But why don't we have it now? Another major failure , and it's
a conceptual failure. I mentioned earlier, we probably missed 90% of
the infected people by testing the way we test now.

Margaret Flinter: Well, Doctor, I wonder if I could just pivot for a moment to talk about
a reality that you have sought to address throughout your long career
and that’s the deep inequities that we have in access to affordable
quality health care for a large sector of the wo rld's population. You're
the co - founder of ACCESS Health Internationa l , a think tank dedicated
to leveraging scientific discovery and technology that improves access
to quality health care for all people. We would welcome your sharing
you r vision that drives that work.

Dr. William Haseltine: I've always been interested in g lobal health. As a molecular biologist
and drug developer, tried to find some way it will be comfortable for
me to work on those problems. Also driven by the realization that
there was so many wonderful opportunities in science that I could see
open up thr ough my lifetime work in the genomic work, the precision
medicine, the use of robots to speed the work of drug discovery, I
mean, just fantastic things we can do. Really , every year, there's a
new chapter opened up of wonderful technologies that speed our
ability to understand treat and cure disease.

My fear was that as prices in the United States and health rose and

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

people didn't have the benefits of a investment we're making , the
impetus to continue that discovery would fade. I think we've seen
some of th at . E ven though our budget of NIH is very healthy , and it
should be what it is, it's something that's bipartisan and I think it's one
of the best things we do , it’s not a guarantee . I was really worried
about the fact that in the United States there are ma ny people who
are going to say, I'm not benefiting from this research. Then i f you
look around the world you understand that in most parts of the world
getting access to good health is not about getting the latest drug , it’s
about getting any drug. It's ab ou t getting access to any doctor.

I was on a board at a place called One World Health and we
developed an old antibiotic to treat visceral leishmaniasis in India .
They got approved in India. However, nobody ever would benefited
from that because where it w as needed Bihar had no infrastructure to
deliver . You have a region of the world that needs it . Y ou solve the
problem conceptually but not practically. T hose experience led me to
say it's really important to get the whole health system right , and so
we sta rted doing research. The way I did the research was to find
what works best around the world. What is the best health delivery
system , highest quality, lowest cost? Answer clear, Singapore, one
quarter of the US cost and the top five of the world. I wrote a book
about how they did it.

I tell you the reaction . I gave it to Mayor Bloomberg and he's got a
good sense of humor. I hand ed him the book. He said, w hy did you
write it? I told him . H e said, w hat makes you think people want to
know ? That is pretty prof ound comment when it comes to these kinds
of books. If you look around the world, you find some great examples
and you look in this country, you see great examples. I believe that
from years of doing deals, collaborations, talking to governments that
if yo u are lucky enough to have the right information you can find
people who've already decided they need it. I've come to the
conclusion , I can't influence anybody's desire to do something but if
they have that desire I can help them do it.

Mark Masselli: We' ve been speaking today with Dr. William Haseltine, Chair and
President of ACCESS Health International and author of just released a
Family Guide to Covid: Questions & Answers for Parents ,
Grandparents, and Children , and a Covid Back to School Guide, t w o
ex tremely important resources for families navigating everyday life
through this pandemic. You can learn more about his work by going to
www.accessh.org , and you could find his books at the website William
Haseltine . D r. Haseltine, thank you so much for the scientific research
and discovery you've brought , but also today for your clear and
consistent message and the compassion that you bring to everything you do, and also for joining us on Conversations on Health Care .

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

Dr. William Haseltine: Well, thank you very much.

[ Music ]

Mark Masselli: At Conversations on Health Care we want our audience to be truly in
the know when it comes to the facts about healthcare reform and
policy. Lori Robertson is an award winning journali st and Managing
Editor of FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate
for voters that aim to reduce the level of deception in US p olitics. Lori,
what have you got for us this week?

Lori Robertson: President Donald Trump exaggerated American ’ s comparative success
battling the Coronavirus, falsely saying in a press briefing that the US
per capita death rate is lower than most of Western Europe. The
th
President made his comments in an August 10 press briefing at the
White House saying, “ we have f ewer deaths per capita than the
United Kingdom and most other nations in Western Europe and
heading for even stronger numbers ” . Trump is right that the US ,
which has had about 50 deaths per 100,000 people has a lower per
capita death rate from COVID - 19 tha n the UK, which has had 70
deaths per 100,000 people . B ut he's wrong when he adds the same is
true of most o ther nations in Western Europe.

According to statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the US
has done better on cumulative per capita deaths than Belgium, Spain,
the UK, Italy and Sweden, as well as two tiny mic rostates Andorra and
San Marino. But the US also has done worse than France, Ireland, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Germany, Denmark,
Monaco, Austria, Finland, Nor way, Iceland and Malta. The following
day Trump altered his claim during a press briefing to exclude the
New York T ri - state area from the nation's per capita death figures.

It's not clear why the President would remove New York, New Jersey
and Connecticut from the country's statistics, and then compare the
per capita rate to other countries that aren't being given a similar
handicap. While Trump says that the US is heading for even stronger
numbers , it’s worth noting that deaths per capita will only grow fo r
nations as more deaths a ccumulate in ongoing outbreaks. That's my
fact check for this week. I'm Lori Robertson, Managing Editor of
FactCheck.org.

Margaret Flinter: FactCheck.org is committed to factual accuracy from the country's
major political players and is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania. If you have a fact that you'd
like checked e - mail us at www.chcradio.com we'll have
FactCheck.org's Lori Robertson check it o ut for you here on
Conversations on Health Care.

[ Music ]

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

Margaret Flinter: Each week Conversations highlights a bright idea about how to make
wellness a part of our communities and everyday lives. When Wichita
Kansas nurse practitioner Michael Wawrzewski l earned of the harsh
and often fatal conditions that expectant mothers endure in Sub -
Saharan Africa all because they live too far from a medical clinic he
thought there had to be a way to fill that need. He came up with a
solution , Clinic in a Can, transfor ming shipping containers into fully
equipped mobile clinics and operating rooms that can be shipped
anywhere in the world where there's a need.

Michael Wawrzewski: When you walk in the inside, you will believe or think that you're
inside at the clinical en vironment for which maybe you're in an
emergency room or an ICU un it. They look exactly the same.

Margaret Flinter: Wawrzewski learned from his early iterations that gas power
generators could be problematic and low resource areas and switch ed
all of his p ortable clinics to solar power, wh ich he says was a game
changer.

Michael Wawrzewski: There's no part of the world that does not have sunlight , and so solar
power has become the cornerstone of h ow we power clinics so that
n ow every piece of equipment inclu ding the air conditioners, we can
run it off of 500 watts of electricity, which means six solar panels on
the top is enou gh to run a clinic for 18 hours.

Margaret Flinter: Since its founding a decade ago, Clinics in a Can have been delivered
to war torn Su dan , to earthquake ravaged Haiti , and more recently to
Santa Rosa, California, an area decimated by the wildfires that also
destroyed the main community health center there. Santa Rosa
Community Health Center CEO Naomi Fuchs says that the portable
clinic p rovided a lifeline for her patients , and it was a godsend for her
providers.

Naomi Fuchs: This has been an outstanding way to respond to emergencies and to
set something up very quickly.

Margaret Flinter: The roughly 120 square feet shipping container clin ics are designed to
become a permanent fixture in low resource areas.

Michael Wawrzewski: We equip it with the best equip ment and we ship it as a completed
project that o nce on the ground within 20 , 30 minutes it ’s ready to be
use d.

Margaret Flinter: Clini c in a Can , fully equipped with medical and surgical equipment
ready for deployment anywhere in the world providing quality state
of the art medical facilities in a low resource area. Now that's a bright
idea.

[ Music ]

Dr. William Haseltine – ACCESS Health Founder and CEO

Mark Masselli: You've been listening t o Conversations on Health Care. I'm Mark
Masselli.

Margaret Flinter: And I'm Margaret Flinter.

Mark Masselli: Peace and Health

Female : Conversations on Health Care is recorded at WESU at Wesleyan
University, streaming live at www.chcradio.com , iTunes, or wherever
you listen to podcast. If you have comments, please e - mail us at
[email protected] or find us on Facebook or Twitter. We love
hearing from you. This show is brought to you by the Community
Health Center .

[ Music ]