Riots over food prices in Haiti are shutting down the country; BBC last night showed the storming of the National Palace. Businesses are closed. A suggestion that we think could help is below, but we don't know how to get to Dr Sachs or those of you who advise him. We think he could influence international policy that could help the suffering Haitian people. Please forward this to him.

 

My husband Warren Berggren, M.D., DrPH, and myself hope that a ceiling price on one or two key foods  in Haiti might calm the situation. Here is the precedent:   We lived and worked in Tunisia for three years when President Bourguiba simply put a ceiling price on bread. It worked. The bakers said they would quit baking but they didn't. The poor had bread, the bakers  baked it, but sold in addition, imported Holland butter, apricot jam made locally and other products to make up the difference.  But the poor were never without bread, as Bourguiba promised. This relieved a politically charged situation at the time, although of course it was not the long-term answer economically. Would  a ceiling price on a food commodity that is widely used by Haitians work as a first step? 

 

My husband and I lived and worked in Haiti for nearly 15 years, most of that time as  faculty members of the Harvard School of Public Health (1967-78 and as retired faculty in  1993-98). Currently I am a member of the Board of Directors of Colorado Global Health at UC Denver, both of us frequently go to Haiti as a consultants in nutrition and in community health.  We are very concerned that action be taken to help Haiti.

 

Haitians are  dependent on rice, corn and wheat products,  much of it imported.  We understand  the US, Canada and others are giving wheat to Haiti that is locally milled and sold as flour. Wheat based products, especially pasta, are increasingly keys to the Haitian diet as well as rice. We are not economists, but  the lives of 8 million people are stake.  Would putting a ceiling price on a few key products work like it did in Tunisia? Many  Haitians have at most  only one meal per day, and a recent medical mission trip documented  that they are "skipping food" on many days. Children are eating "mud balls" to quiet their hunger pangs.

 

Please kindly forward this information  to Dr Sachs, a colleague we met in Boston. We would be happy to speak with  anyone concerned.  

 

Gretchen Berggren, M.D., M.Sc.Hyg.,

Harvard School of Public Health (retired faculty)

23805 Currant Dr

Golden, Co., 80401

720 746 1172