The World According to Larry

INTERVIEW BY MOISÉS NAÍM | JULY 1, 2002

The Global War for Public Health

So this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but … a cough. Shocked by anthrax attacks and widespread talk of other types of bioterrorism, today's cataclysmists can perhaps be forgiven their fears that Western civilization faces a fatal threat. But for Gro Harlem Brundtland, the director-general of the World Health Organization, it's just another day at the office. As leader of the global fight to protect public health, Brundtland already contends with current plagues such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis -- diseases whose daily death toll is measured not in headlined ones or twos, but in anonymous tens of thousands. Her foes in that struggle are not terrorists, but tight-fisted politicians, recalcitrant bureaucrats, and hard-nosed corporate executives. Luckily, Brundtland's experience and tenacity as three-time prime minister of Norway and head of the World Commission on Environment and Development (known as the Brundtland Commission) have made her not just one of the world's most seasoned female politicians, but what one observer called "a warrior for public health." Here, in an October 18, 2001, conversation with FP Editor Moisés Naím in New York City, she talks about tomorrow's greatest health threats, the best and worst of global medical care, her fight against Big Tobacco and Big Drugs, and the vital role her underfunded, increasingly politicized institution plays in the unending war against disease and poverty.

JANUARY 1, 2002

Vox Americani

What do Americans want? The U.S. public's view of the world has long been a study in what seem like maddening contradictions, at times both altruistic and paranoid, protectionist and entrepreneurial, and isolationist and multilateralist. Like many other analysts, FP's editors have worn deep furrows into our brows trying to discern how Americans see the world and their place in it. So we invited Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland and author of several groundbreaking studies of U.S. public opinion, to "interview" the American people on the most pressing global issues of the day. He created a composite of average Americans -- a virtual John/Jane Q. Public -- derived from the majority positions in extensive polling data and using the kind of language he commonly hears in focus groups. (An annotated version of this interview can be found at www.foreignpolicy.com with footnotes citing poll questions and data.) As it turns out, Americans defy simple labels, largely because they refuse to submit to simplistic choices.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2001