Book Report: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

 Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder is a must read, I am afraid to tell you.  Now, I listened to it on my ipod, and it was very well narrated by Paul Michael, with whom I am unfamiliar, but he is apparently the same person who read The DaVinci Code, and made quite a success of it.

The book is the life story of Paul Farmer and his quest for providing health care to impoverished nations around the world.  He is the product of an odd childhood, raised on a houseboat and a bus and educated where ever his parents were currently living.  His younger brother is now a professional wrestler. After attending Duke University on scholarship, then Harvard Medical school, Farmer spent a summer in Haiti, and then gave his life to Haiti.

He honestly gave his life to Haiti.  He has no salary, it all goes to Haiti except for the the payment on his mother's mortgage.  He works incessantly and gives as much medical care as he can personally provide.  He began Partners in Health (PIH) which offers free medical care to Haitians.  He has devoted himself to the proper care of and stopping the spread of AIDS and Tuberculosis in third world countries.  His life of altruism has attracted the attention of great financiers like George Soros and Bill Gates, and the money that is pouring into his foundations is honestly halting the spread of AIDS and TB.  While these are things that don't necessarily kill us in America, they are wiping out families in droves in the third world.

One interesting conundrum that Paul Farmer has had to solve was how to stop the spread of AIDS through breast milk.  He first had to educate women that their breast milk could transmit a deadly virus to their babies.  So this education seemed like a great thing, but then there was nothing to feed newborn infants.  So, Farmer and his crew were able to get formula donations.  So this was a great thing, the problem seemed solved, but there is no clean water that his newly educated women could use to mix formula.  SO, he and his crew had to teach water purification and import clean water to finally make sure that the spread of AIDS was stopped in a particular population.

The book is amazing.  It was a great listen and a call to arms.  Must Read!!!