NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ Profiles Outgoing WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland

NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday included a profile of departing World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland and discussed her "controversial term" and how she responded to the "burden" of worsening disease and health conditions throughout the world, including HIV/AIDS in Africa. According to Brundtland's critics, the WHO "has not brought enough pressure to bear" on developed countries to provide antiretroviral medications to HIV-positive Africans because it is "too cozy with the pharmaceutical industry," NPR reports. Brundtland said that she has been "a much stronger political advocate for health" than her predecessors, adding, "It's not the higher you shout, the more effective you are; the question is: Are you able to move forward the forces that decide what happens? For instance: Have you been able to be part of the reason why we have a global fund now? And I think I am part of that reason because I managed to bring health onto the political agenda and have a secretary general of the United Nations who much more than any time before has taken AIDS health issues as part of his central agenda." The segment also includes comments from Global Health Council President and CEO Nils Daulaire and Lancet Editor Richard Horton. A new WHO director-general will be elected later this month (Wilson, "All Things Considered," NPR, 1/6). The full segment is available online in RealPlayer.