Dr. Faizullah Kakar, PhD (Retired) فيض الله كاكر | |
---|---|
Chief of Staff | |
In office 2019 – 30 March 2020 | |
Preceded by | Abdul Salam Rahimi |
Succeeded by | Mohammad Shakir Kargar |
Afghan Ambassador to Qatar | |
In office 2016–2019 | |
Minister Adviser to the President for Health and Education | |
In office 2009–2016 | |
Preceded by | Dr. Najibullah Mojadidi |
Deputy Minister of Public Health | |
In office 2005–2009 | |
Preceded by | Dr. Ferozuddin Feroz |
Succeeded by | Dr. Ahmad Jan Naeem |
Chancellor of Islamic University of Afghanistan | |
In office 1992–1996 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Faizullah Kakar December 24, 1950 Gurziwan, Faryab, AF |
Nationality | Afghan American |
Residence(s) | Kabul, Afghanistan |
Alma mater | University of Washington Indiana University Earlham College |
Faizullah Kakar (Pashto: فيض الله كاكر, Persian: فيض الله كاكر, born 24 December 1950) is a retired Afghan epidemiologist. He retired from civil service on 30 March 2020.[1] He previously served as the Chief of Staff to President Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar,[2] the Adviser to president for Health and Education, and the Deputy Minister of Public Health for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.[3] Kakar also previously served as the Presidential National Focal Point for Polio Eradication for Afghanistan, as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation effort to eradicate polio.[4][5] Kakar has written and spoken internationally about numerous challenges faced in Afghanistan, including infectious disease epidemics,[6] maternal mortality[7] and the dangers of herbicides used to eradicate poppy.[8]
Kakar attended secondary school at Lycee Habibia in Kabul, Afghanistan. In 1975, Kakar graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. In 1977, Kakar received a master's degree in Toxicology from Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1982, Kakar completed his doctoral degree (PhD) in Epidemiology from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.[9][10] From 1981 to 1988, Kakar also served on the board of the Islamic School of Seattle, Washington.[11]
At the University of Washington, from 1984 to 1986, Kakar worked as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. In 1986, he was hired as a Staff Scientist at Cancer Control Research Unit of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.[12]
In 1988, he moved to Peshawar, Pakistan where he founded the Research and Advisory Council of Afghanistan (RACA). He served first as General Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine of the Ministry of Public Health, Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan. In 1990, Kakar served as Dean for the College of Medicine, then Vice-Chancellor before serving as Chancellor of Islamic University of Afghanistan (IUA) in Peshawar, Pakistan until 1996. From 1993 to 1995, Kakar also served as the Deputy Minister of Public Health for the Islamic Government of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan.
In 1997, Kakar moved to Islamabad, Pakistan where he was selected by United Nations as the Medical Officer/Epidemiologist for World Health Organization (WHO). Kakar was first to develop and coin the term "Disease Early Warning System" (DEWS) in Pakistan, which is a surveillance system recognized now throughout the world and being copied in many countries. Kakar worked for the WHO for 7 years.
In 2005, Kakar was again tapped as Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Public Health by the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Kabul where he served for 5 years.[13] Kakar opposed mass spraying of fields with herbicide glyphosate to eradicate poppy,[14] which was later proven to be carcinogenic in humans.[15]
In 2009, he was promoted to Minister Adviser to the President on Health and Education Affairs. In 2012, he was also assigned to be the Presidential Focal Point for Polio Eradication, a position with global support as Afghanistan remains one of only three countries in the world with endemic polio transmission.
In 2016, Kakar was appointed as the Afghan Ambassador to Doha, Qatar where he worked closely to support efforts for peace in Afghanistan.[16]
Dr. Faizullah Kakar, Afghanistan’s deputy minister of public health, was the member of Karzai’s cabinet best qualified to evaluate the risks that might be posed to the Afghan people by aerial spraying. He had grown up in Kabul but earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Earlham College in Indiana, a master’s degree in toxicology from Indiana University, and a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the University of Washington. He had later worked for the World Health Organization in Pakistan. Kakar understood that glyphosate was widely used by American gardeners and farmers, who poured about one hundred million pounds of the stuff on their lawns and fields every year. The Environmental Protection Agency judged that glyphosate had “low toxicity” for humans, “slight toxicity” for birds, and was harmless to fish and bees. Apart from requiring a warning label, the E.P.A. did not restrict the chemical giant Monsanto from manufacturing or selling Roundup to Americans. Yet Kakar seriously doubted that it made sense to douse Afghan fields with the stuff. “You are telling us about how safe it is,” he told Doug Wankel, the D.E.A. official in the Kabul embassy. “Remember D.D.T.?” He was referring to dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, a synthetic insecticide developed in the 1940s. Initially popular and believed to be safe, D.D.T. turned out to be highly persistent in the environment and was ultimately classified by the E.P.A. as a probable human carcinogen. Kakar pointed out that Afghanistan had “a much more agricultural economy” than the United States, that runoff from fields went straight to local water supplies, and that many Afghans were “totally dependent” on farming. The country could not afford a massive spraying campaign based on current scientific assessments, only to discover later that glyphosate was not as safe as advertised. Kakar propounded his views before Karzai and the full Afghan cabinet. He said that while the Americans “used thousands of pounds of the same spray safely in California,” the United States did much better at protecting its water sources, whereas Afghans “drink from open watercourses.”
“This is the most popular chemical in the world,” Bill Wood pointed out. Yet Wood and other advocates for spraying underestimated the asymmetries of power in these arguments with Afghans. Most Afghan decision makers (and for that matter, many Colombians) were not in a position to independently judge the longterm public health risks of glyphosate. And why should they accept E.P.A. judgments as gospel, given America’s own history of regulatory failures involving chemicals and public health? Amrullah Saleh and other cabinet ministers objected to the spraying plan on the grounds that “Taliban propaganda would profit greatly from any spraying.” Karzai’s instinctive sense was that if farmers and itinerant poppy pickers in Helmand and Kandahar looked up and saw American helicopters thundering over the horizon as dusters poured chemicals onto their fields, they would recall the atrocities of Soviet aerial warfare and blame Hamid Karzai. Gradually during 2007, while remaining cautious about offending President Bush, but with the unified support of his cabinet, Karzai made his position clear to the Americans: He opposed aerial spraying. He also opposed any role for the U.S. military in fighting drug production.