A Voice from the American Wilderness

April 12, 2017  |  The Lancet

Writing in The Lancet, one of the oldest and best known medical journals, Editor-in-Chief Richard Horton gives a detailed analysis of the recent Dartmouth and Dickey Center symposium on global health, held on April 12, 2017. 

At an inspiringly timed conference held last week—Global Health in the Era of De-Globalisation—Dartmouth academics and alumni gathered to discuss what Ambassador Daniel Benjamin called “the great unravelling."

...Dartmouth is on the front lines of what might turn out to be one of the greatest acts of civil protest since the Vietnam War—a rebirth of the social role of the American university, triggered by the values of public, global, and planetary health.

His comments, appearing in "Offline," a forum for Horton's views on the health landscape, praise Dartmouth's foresight, but acknowledge the conundrum of students and faculty of a elite liberal arts university voicing a commitment to "global health as an instrument of resistance in America's new era of belligerent isolationism." 

Hoton's complete comments are available at The Lancet online. 

Watch Dr. Horton's presentation "Planetary Health: Perils and Possibilities for Human Civilization" at the symposium.