Drauzio Varella
Antônio Drauzio Varella is a Brazilian physician, scientist, writer, and medical science communicator. Varella has often commented publicly on issues such as prison conditions, social welfare, government, literature, medicine, and skepticism, and has frequently debunked pseudoscientific medical claims.
Varella was born in the Brás district of São Paulo to a family of Portuguese and Spanish descent and studied medicine at the University of São Paulo. While an undergraduate, he co-founded test preparation school Sistema Objetivo, where he taught chemistry for several years. The institution was later expanded into Universidade Paulista. Varella received the 2000 Prêmio Jabuti for his book Estação Carandiru.
Career
After his 1967 graduation, Varella specialized in infectious disease, studying under Vicente Amato Neto at the University of São Paulo and at the Hospital do Servidor Público de São Paulo. This work led him to develop an interest in immunology. Varella interned at MD Anderson in 1978, and has worked at Hospital do Câncer, specializing in oncology.He is a professor at Universidade Paulista and has taught at other institutions in Brazil and abroad, such as the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic, Karolinska Institute, Hiroshima University and the National Cancer Center of Japan. Varella has often studied AIDS, specifically the treatment of Kaposi's sarcoma.
Varella has had an active role in prevention and educational campaigns about AIDS, and was the first one to host a radio program on the subject. From 1989 to 2001, he worked as an unpaid volunteer physician in Carandiru Penitentiary, working to alleviate an AIDS epidemic among inmates. He wrote the best-seller book Estação Carandiru chronicling this experience; it was later adapted into the film Carandiru, by Hector Babenco. The book has been described as a quasi-ethnographical study of the prison.
As the chairman of a cancer research institute at Universidade Paulista, Varella has headed a research program on the utility of medicinal plants native to the Amazon rainforest in the treatment neoplasm and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This research is supported by the São Paulo Research Support Foundation.
Writing
Varella is active in furthering the public understanding of science, particularly regarding medical topics. He has been a columnist for Brazilian newspapers such as Folha de S. Paulo and Zero Hora and was invited by the Globo TV Network to host a series of programs on the human body, the brain, first aid, smoking,pregnancy, obesity and others, which were exhibited at the Fantástico show on Sundays. He is also the producer and host of a TV talk show on medicine and health, which is broadcast on several TV channels.For his work as a writer, Varella received several prizes and awards, among them the Prêmio Jabuti from the Brazilian Book Chamber, the International Book Fair of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, and The International Book Biennal of Rio de Janeiro.
He has also written fiction for adults and children and has often been a vocal supporter of scientific skepticism.