Ride for World Health leaves for Athens

from the Columbus Dispatch

By Bobby Pierce

After biking 3,100 miles from San Diego to Columbus, cyclists from Ride for World Health left this morning for Athens, Ohio. The group hosted an event at The Ohio State Medical Center yesterday to raise money and awareness for global health issues.

Founded in 2004 at Ohio State University, Ride for World Health aims to address healthcare access, the correlation of poverty and illness, HIV/AIDS and women’s and children’s health. Their first cross-country ride was in 2006.

Each year the nonprofit organization chooses a charity to help. This year, the 22 cyclists are riding for Doctors Without Borders.

Starting on April 6, the riders made stops in Los Angeles, Denver and Kansas City for “Global Health Days” at medical centers prior to arriving in Columbus.

The Global Health Day at the OSU Medical Center featured talks about malaria, polio and other scourges in world health.

“There is a lack of medical care for large swaths of the population,” said Michael Newman, a physician with Doctors without Borders, who spoke at the event.

He focused on the crisis in Myanmar.

“Myanmar is accepting more aid from Asian countries than from the United States and Europe,” said Newman. “They don’t trust us. That is why they are refusing our aid.”

There are currently two Doctors without Borders teams in the country, about 325 workers, working on HIV/AIDS. They were there before the cyclone, and before their government blocked some international aid, he said.

Most health problems could be fixed by helping people gain a better standard of living, said Joe Simonetti, an OSU medical student who is the CEO for Ride for World Health.

“Poverty is the problem, it is the only problem,” he said.