HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt Addresses 27th Pan American Sanitary Conference

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Michael O. Leavitt provided remarks at the opening session of the 27th Pan American Sanitary Conference (PASC) in Washington, D.C. on October 1, 2007. (Photo by Harold Ruiz, Pan American Health Organization)

October 1, 2007 – U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Michael O. Leavitt provided remarks today at the opening session of the 27th Pan American Sanitary Conference (PASC) in Washington, D.C. The PASC is the supreme governing body of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), an international public health agency that works to improve health of people in the Americas.

Secretary Leavitt, who led the U.S. delegation to the PASC, reported on progress made on the President’s Initiative to Advance the Cause of Social Justice in the Western Hemisphere, announced by President Bush in March 2007, including the opening of a Regional Training Center in Panamá to train health-care workers throughout Central America. He also spoke of the valuable contributions made by the officers of the HHS U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who deployed, beginning in June, aboard the U.S. Navy Ship Comfort to offer dental and other basic medical care in Central America and the Caribbean. Among the partners for that humanitarian mission was PAHO, which purchased the dental sealants and varnishes used by the USNS Comfort’s teams of dental care providers.

"I flew out to visit the ship last month when it stopped in Haiti. I can tell you firsthand how much this care meant to the people receiving it," Secretary Leavitt told PAHO members. "Health care is truly an international language of caring. Everywhere we went, people understood, without a word being said, that we were their friends."

Other participants at the PASC included Mirta Roses, M.D., Director of PAHO; the Honorable Margaret Chan, M.D., Director-General of the World Health Organization; Christina Beato, M.D., Deputy Director of PAHO; and Ministers of Health from all 35 PAHO Member Countries.

For more information:

• Secretary Leavitt’s Remarks as Prepared on Pan American Health Organization
• Hemisphere's Health Authorities Open PAHO Annual Meeting (Pan American Health Organization)

Last revised: October 05, 2007