Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who is traveling in East Africa with a U.S. delegation “to study the famine affecting the lives of over 12 million people, many of them children,” writes in the Huffington Post’s blog, “Huffpost Impact,” that the group will assess “what more we as a nation can do.” 

Frist, who is a physician and has worked in other humanitarian situations, states that his focus during the visit will be “on the vaccinations given for measles, polio, and malaria; oral rehydration distributed to those suffering from diarrhea; and, vitamins for children to bolster their immune system,” all “simple, cheap interventions to fight disease in the malnourished.” “I am eager to learn what is being accomplished and what more needs to be done,” he writes, adding, “America has done a lot which has lessened the unfolding tragedy in the region, but there is a lot more we can do to reverse the course underway” (8/8).