I can't think of a better model for Haiti rebuilding than Rwanda.

I've been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully.

I think that looking forward it's easy to imagine more constructive help for Haiti.

The biggest public health challenge is rebuilding health systems. In other words, if you look at cholera or maternal mortality or tuberculosis in Haiti, they're major problems in Haiti, but the biggest problem is rebuilding systems.

But as for activism, my parents did what they could, given the constraints, but were never involved in the causes I think of when I think of activists.

Some people talk about Haiti as being the graveyard of development projects.

Haiti is always talking about decentralization and nothing has been so obvious, perhaps a weakness, as the centralized nature of Haitian society as being revealed by the earthquake. I mean, they lost all these medical training programs because they didn't have them anywhere else.