Global Health conference held October 14

Posted November 24th, 2009 by Des Moines University

Approximately 125 faculty, students and community members attended the global health conference held on the DMU campus on Wednesday,  October 14.  This HGHC conference, which featured U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and several other speakers, was held in conjunction with Des Moines’ annual World Food Prize celebration and symposium.

“To help combat hunger around the world, the Unites States is working to share its expertise rather than just its bounty” explained Secretary Vilsack.  He said the USDA is striving to enhance “food security” by taking its expertise in producing, storing, distributing and using food to countries around the world. In addition to helping the planet’s nearly one billion people who are malnourished, he said, these efforts “allow us to enhance America’s image around the world.” “That’s important, because to address issues like global warming, environmental protection and terrorism, we need partners,” he added. “America can’t do all that by itself.”

Another conference speaker was epidemiologist Dr. William Foege, senior fellow in the global health program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Former director of the Centers for Disease Control, Foege worked in the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s and led in accelerating childhood immunization in the 1980s; it is estimated that his work has saved over 122 million people’s lives worldwide. “Your real bosses are not the people who fill out your annual performance review – although you’ll have to pretend they are,” Foege advised students at the conference. “Your real bosses are the people living 300 years from now, because you’ll be preparing the world they’ll be living in.”