We square off with PhRMA, the trade group for the multinational pharmaceutical giants, in letters to The New York Times this week. At stake is treatment rationing, particularly for Hepatitis C. Will those who need treatment receive it?

My father, Gary H. Maybarduk, has a letter in The Washington Post today, concerning what he considers to be the U.S. Government’s lost opportunity to respond in timely, effective fashion to Ebola in West Africa — and what we can do now to help curb exponential transmission.

My father served as Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Government in Sierra Leone from 1988-1991, which included the Liberian refugee crisis and an invasion tied to the regional war, and as political and economic officer in Cuba in 1998-1999. Soon after ebola cases started appearing this year he pitched the government of Sierra Leone on the idea of requesting U.S. Army field hospitals and Cuban medics. He enlisted some high-ups in the U.S. and Sierra Leone to help the cause. Sierra Leone took the advice, and Cuban medics are there now.

Read my father’s letter here. You can also donate to Borbor Pain Charity School of Hope, a school we support outside Freetown, which operates for the poorest, takes no user fees, and is working hard to keep ebola out, here.

In 2004 I wrote about Venezuela’s contentious community healthcare program, Barrio Adentro, for The Multinational Monitor. I believe it was the first investigative article on the subject, or at least in English. Read it here.

“It is nearly impossible to travel Venezuela without hearing reference to the government’s highly popular and controversial healthcare initiative that invites Cuban doctors to treat, train and live with working-class Venezuelans in communities across the country…”