Who We Are

The Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer (GIAHC), a program of the American Sexual Health Association, aims to empower people, communities and societies internationally to reduce the disease burden from HPV and cervical cancers through collective engagement, advocacy, collaboration and education.

Please note that this is a partial list of our coalition members.

Shobha S. Krishnan, M.D., Founder and President of GIAHC

Shobha S. Krishnan, MD, is a New York based family physician and gynecologist. She is a member of the STD research-working group at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition, and on the expert's panel of the American Social Health Association. Prior to moving to New York, she was in private practice for 10 years, during which time she also served as a surveillance physician for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Dr. Krishnan has been invovled in the area of primary care and women's health for over 25 years. She has extensive experience both nationally and internationally in the field of HPV and HPV related diseases. Her vast experience and expertise in this field have given her a unique perspective on the various issues related to HPV and its disease consequences.

She is the author of the award-winning book, The HPV Vaccine Controversy: Sex, Cancer, God and Politics. Her book has been widely reviewed and recommended both in the U.S. and abroad to professionals and the public alike. It is the recipient of the 2009 Book of the Year Award from the American Journal of Nursing and is the winner of two 2010 International Book Awards. Details of the book and other pertinent information can be found at thehpvbook.com.

Alan Kaye, Founder and Chairman of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition (NCCC)

Mr. Kaye has been involved in cancer diagnostics advocacy since 1996 when he co-founded the NCCC (now the NCCC/GIAHC) with his late wife, Randi. The NCCC has 23 Chapters throughout the United States and is growing internationally through GIAHC. For 12 years, Mr. Kaye was also the co-owner of a national molecular/pathology laboratory and has had 37 years experience in laboratory medicine prior to his retirement. In addition to the NCCC, he has collaborated with the American Cancer Society (ACS), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (GCF), and several other national gynecological cancer organizations, to create educational opportunities for clinicians.

He has helped pioneer community efforts, including outreach in Los Angeles County to increase cervical cancer awareness and human papillomavirus (HPV) education through public service announcements and a multi-lingual phone bank, as well as screening awareness education for Malawi, Africa. He has developed the award-winning cervical cancer/HPV website, www.nccc-online.org. Along with others, he successfully worked to designate January as Cervical Health Awareness Month and for more than two decades has been active in grassroots campaigns to promote awareness year-round as well as during Cervical Health Awareness Month. He brought the national cervical cancer/HPV quilts to Sacramento to promote legislative awareness in California and has been responsible for overseeing the travel of the cervical cancer/HPV quilts nationwide to numerous healthcare and women's events.

As the past Executive Director of the NCCC he has testified before the FDA on new technologies. For 3 years, he has been a member of the Data Safety Management Group (DSMG) on cervical cancer/HPV vaccines at the National Cancer Institute (a collaboration between industry, scientists and advocates). He was a member of the advocate planning group for a national conference held in Washington, DC in September 2007 on the cervical cancer/HPV vaccine and for the NCCC national meetings in Los Angeles in 2008 and in Chicago in 2009. He is working again in a leadership role on planning for the upcoming 2010 national conference on cervical cancer and HPV cancers to be held in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mr. Kaye has produced three cervical cancer/HPV educational videos, developed cervical cancer/HPV prevention Public Service Announcements in both English and Spanish and created online electronic newsletters about cervical cancer & HPV events at the NCCC. He has helped develop and launch the "Parents Educating Parents" program which provides information about cervical cancer/HPV prevention through vaccination to parents at local schools nationwide. Day after day, week after week, month after month, through the NCCC Hotline, PhonePals program, NCCC's online community, NCCC survivors program and emails, Mr. Kaye helps women and their family members battle the real issues related to all cancers, cervical cancer and HPV disease.

GIAHC ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. Jerome L Belinson

Jerome L Belinson is the President and founder of Preventive Oncology International, Inc. (www.poiinc.org) a research organization that blends humanitarian work with investigative science.

Dr Belinson has worked for more than 14 years in rural China in multiple provinces throughout the country. His initial study known as SPOCCS I, The Shanxi Province Cervical Cancer Screening Study, received international acclaim and it continues to serve as a model for study design in epidemiology courses around the world. This study provided the true sensitivity and specificity of multiple screening technologies. The work of Dr. Belinson and his P.O.I. colleagues has also been recognized for their careful adherence to human values and the proper conduct of studies involving human subjects in the third world.  In addition to China, POI has conducted studies in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the US.

Jerome L Belinson, MD is the Ex-officio Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation 1990-2000. He has dedicated his career to advancing the screening and treatment of gynecologic cancers.

Dr Belinson serves as Professor of Surgery with the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of the Case Western Reserve University. Trained in Ob/Gyn at Columbia University's Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, a fellow in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Miami, Jackson MemorialHospital, Dr Belinson began the first formal gynecologic oncology service at the University of Vermont in 1977. He has previously held full professorships at the University of Vermont (tenured) and The Ohio State University. Voted teacher of the year at the University of Vermont, and on three occasions at the Cleveland Clinic; Dr. Belinson received the 2004 distinguished graduate Citation of Merit from the University of Missouri Medical School, The Bruce Hubbard Stewart award for humanitarianism  in medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, and is consistently listed among the "Best Doctors in America". In 2010 Dr Belinson received the "Chinese Friendship Award", the highest recognition China gives to a foreigner.

He has served as an advisor to the Ministry of Science in India, the medical advisory board for the Gates Foundation START project (to develop a rapid low cost HPV test), and serves on the Board of Directors of Grounds for Health, an organization that provides care for women in the coffee growing regions of the world.

MRS. SUSHMA IYENGAR

Mrs. Sushma Iyengar is the founder of Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KVMS), an organization of rural women in Gujarat, India, dedicated to empowering women to increase their income in a sustainable way. Today the members of KVMS provide leadership to over 14,000 women and communities in 175 villages. Its collectives focus on issues of ecological restoration and adaptation to drought, strengthening women’s roles and resource access in their traditional economies of animal husbandry and embroidered craft, domestic violence, reproductive health, land tenancy rights and political participation. The collective has pioneered the use of community radio in the country.

As the Coordinating Head of the KMVS network, Iyengar led the relief and rehabilitation  coordination following the 2001 earthquake in the region.  Iyengar’s work brought several awards and recognition. In 1996 she received the Gondhia Award for Social Work. She was nominated in 2005 by India Today as one of the 30 young, powerful women influencers in the country, and in 2007 was featured on CNN-IBN in its series on individuals who have contributed to India’s development.

Sushma obtained her B.A. and M.A degrees in English/Comparative Literature from M.S. University, Baroda in 1985. She obtained her Master in Professional Studies in Development Communication from Cornell University in 1988

DR. MATHURAM SANTOSHAM

Dr. Santosham was born in Vellore, India and obtained his MBBS degree from the Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and research (JIPMER) in, Pondicherry, India in 1970. He subsequently moved to the United States and obtained Board Certification in Pediatrics and an MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins University. He also did a Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Santosham currently is part of the Executive Committee for the recently formed Hib Initiative, overseeing activities to help countries make evidence-informed decisions regarding the use of Hib vaccines. He is the Director of the Center for American Indian and Alaskan Native Health, and the Program for Health Systems at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland and a Professor in the Department of International Health, and the Department of Pediatrics at JHU.

Dr. Santosham is internationally known for his work on oral rehydration therapy and for his work on childhood vaccines. He has conducted numerous vaccine efficacy trials, including rotavirus vaccine, H. influenza type b (Hib) conjugate vaccine, and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. He was the Primary Investigator on the pivotal vaccine efficacy trial that led to the licensure of one of the Hib conjugate vaccines.

Dr. Santosham serves on numerous national and international committees on infant vaccines and oral rehydration therapy. He has acted as consultant for several international agencies including WHO, USAID and UNICEF. He has provided consultation in various aspects of child survival in over 30 countries. He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed journals and serves as a reviewer for several international medical journals. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Thrasher Research Fund award for excellence in research.

Madelon Lubin Finkel, PhD

Dr. Madelon Lubin Finkel received her BA degree from University College, New York University and a Masters in Public Health (concentration in health services research) also from New York University. She was awarded a Ph.D. in epidemiology and health services research from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of New York University.

Dr Finkel's professional career has been spent at Cornell University's medical college. She presently holds the rank of Professor of Clinical Public Health as well as Course Director for the Department (Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Evidence-Based Medicine, Introduction to the Health Care System, and Clinical Clerkship in Health Care Policy). She was named the medical school’s first Director of the Office of Global Health Medical Education in 2004. Additionally, Dr Finkel was instrumental in establishing Cornell Analytic Consulting Services, a Division within the Department of Public Health designed to provide expert epidemiological consulting services. In addition to her faculty appointment at Cornell Medical College, Dr Finkel also holds the rank of Professor of Research in Medicine at SUNY Stony Brook, and was a Visiting Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney (Australia) in 2004. In 2008 she was named a Fulbright Senior Specialist awarded by The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The Program promotes linkages between U.S. academics and professionals and their counterparts at universities abroad. 

Dr Finkel has been involved in epidemiological research and health care policy studies. Her pioneering work on second surgical opinion programs led to the widespread adoption and implementation of the second opinion benefit required by almost all insurance companies, corporations, and unions. She has published numerous articles in the area of health care cost management. Other research activities focus on pharmaco?epidemiology, women’s health, and quality assurance. Dr. Finkel's 9th book (on mammography screening) was published in 2005, and her 10th book, Truth, Lies, and Public Health: How We Are Affected when Science and Politics Collide was published in 2007. She served as Editor on a three-volume text on public health, Public Health in the 21st Century (Praeger Publishing, 2011), will be published in 2011

Women's health issues have been the focus of past and present research projects. Dr Finkel, in consultation with the New York City Board of Education, conducted many studies in the area of teenage pregnancy and childbearing. Her work led to the revision of the sexual education curriculum, which was implemented by the Board of Education in the early 1980s. Her work in the area of hormone replacement therapy focused on alternatives for women experiencing the menopause, her work on the epidemiology of silicone breast implants focused on the misuse of the epidemiologic science in court cases. She is now working on a cervical cancer screening and HPV project in rural India.

Dr Finkel has served as consultant to numerous organizations, including law firms and pharmaceutical companies, in the areas of epidemiology and health care policy. She has been appointed by the Director General of the WHO to the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Evaluation. She is a member of the American College of Epidemiology, an advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, and a charter member of the Academy of Benefit Authors of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

Teaching and writing are very important. Dr Finkel has twice been awarded the highest teaching honor at Cornell Medical College, the Excellence in Teaching Award, which is bestowed to those professors who are nominated and elected by students and the administration. Dr Finkel is a prolific writer whose articles have appeared in numerous professional journals. She also writes for the lay press, translating the epidemiological science into language that the public can comprehend. Her pieces have appeared in many newspapers. She also had been a commentator on health issues for National Public Radio.

MR. VENKAT SADASIVAN

Venkat Sadasivan is a senior finance director with the Dow Chemical Company.  He has extensive global financial background in controller’s, Treasury and business finance.

After starting his finance career in1990 in Louisiana, Sadasivan progressed through a variety of assignments in the controller’s function. He then relocated to Midland, Michigan as a manager for treasury accounting activities. In 1999, he was appointed as the Chief Financial Officer and Controller for Dow Thailand and Vietnam operations.

Sadasivan holds an accounting degree from the University of Alabama and has completed management development programs in the Thunderbird and Kelley schools of business. He has served on the board of various joint venture companies and as a member of the tax and legal committee with the American Chamber of Commerce.

He recently lost his wife (46) to stage IV lung cancer (non smoker). His personal journey as the primary caretaker of his wife has given him a deep understanding of the importance of GIAHC’s mission of raising awareness, prevention, early detection and treatment of cancers, and, feels honored to serve on its board.

Dr. Anna Guiliano

Dr. Guiliano is Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Genetics, and Program Leader of the Risk Assessment, Detection, and Intervention Program at the Moffitt Cancer in Tampa, Florida. Dr. Giuliano is a consultant for several large NIH-funded cervical cancer prevention programs, and she serves as an advisory board member to several large international research consortia.

She is the recipient of several large grants from the NIH, the National Cancer Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for research on HPV infection among women and men, with a specific interest in prevention interventions such as those promoting cervical cancer screening among underserved women in the US and in Latin America and vaccine prevention strategies. Other areas of research interest include understanding the factors that allow HPV infection to progress to disease among women and men, HPV and its association with non-melanoma skin, and other viral associated cancers such as Merkel Cell Carcinoma.

Anna R. Giuliano, PhD, received her doctorate from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. She continued her studies at the New England Epidemiology Institute (Epidemiology Statistics) in Boston and at the University of Arizona in Tucson as a National Cancer Prevention and Etiology Fellow from 1990-1993.  From 1993 to 1998 she was the recipient of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute Preventive Oncology Career Development Award.

Dr. Giuliano serves as an Advisor to Intercultural Cancer Council and is a member of the Medical Advisory Panel of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition and the Prevent Cancer Foundation. She is also a member of the International Papillomavirus Society, the International Epidemiological Association, the American Association of Cancer Researchers, and the American Public Health Association, among other professional organizations.

Dr. Giuliano serves as a reviewer for several NIH grant review panels and as manuscript reviewer for several journals, including the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, International Journal of Cancer, Journal of Infectious Diseases, and JAMA.  She has published over 160 original scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals such as Lancet Oncology, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and the International Journal of Cancer.  Dr. Giuliano contributed significantly to the 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report The Unequal Burden of Cancer and to the WHO IARC HPV Monograph published in 2007.

Indian Chapter Leader

Liladhear Gada

Adha hails from a family of businessmen in Bombay who had their beginnings in the district of Kutch, Gujarat. Adha's uncle was an eye surgeon, and on his retirement, he decided to dedicate his services to Kutch by organizing Eye Camps. Unfortunately on his way to organize the first Eye Camp, Adha's uncle had a massive heart attack and died at the railway station in Mumbai. His family decided to continue on with his uncle's wish and they organized the Eye Camp in his memory in Kutch in 1973. Adha and his late wife took time away from their business acitivites and pledged to devote maximum time for eye camps and other philanthropic work. In 1983, the Bidada Sarvadaya Trust, in which Adha was the trustee, started an Eye hospital and medical center which went on to add other specialities including, ENT, General Surgery, Orthopedic, Cardiac and Dental services. In 1998, a 15 bed rural referral hospitals started functioning at Bhojay. In their first cancer prevention camp, Adha was moved by the existing gynecologic problems, which had remained unnoticed, unaddressed and untreated for more than a decade for many women. Adha has traveled to almost every village in western Kutch to talk to midwives about the implementation of these programs. During the past ten years, the Bhojay Sarvodaya Trust has arraged upwards of 40 gynecologic diagnostic and surgical camps where over 25,000 women have been examined and given free medicine and over 2300 surgeries have been performed. Bhojay has become a unique center for gynecologic patients. Adha intends to develop Bhojay as a leading rural cetner for the detection and prevention of cervical cancer with its collaboration with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) an NGO and GIAHC (Dr. Shobha Krishnan and her team).

Internship Committee

Alice Drain

Alice Drain is a senior at Yale University majoring in history. She is involved in community service and currently serves as the Education Network Coordinator for Dwight Hall, the independent center for public service and social justice at Yale, and as a volunteer at The Connecticut Hospice. A course on public health convinced Alice to make the transition to medicine, and she plans on enrolling in a post-baccalaureate program after obtaining her B.A.

Surbhi Grover

Dr. Surbji Grover is currently a Radiation Oncology resident at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her BA in Economics from Columbia University. During medical school she worked under Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and other economists at the Earth Institure on evaluation of the National Rural Health Mission, a rural health initiative by the Ministry of Health of India. Her interests lie in oncology and public health, specifically women's health, cervical and breast cancer screening, and awareness program implementation and upscaling. She hopes to continue to contribute toward cancer prevention efforts in India through her residency and beyond.

Talia Azenkot

Talia Azenkot is a second-year student at Barnard College, Columbia University where she is majoring in Biology. Originally from Israel, Azenkot grew up in San Jose, California. In October 2010, she founded The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Education and Outreach Project: A Student Partnership with the Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer. The goal of the organization is to promote HPV awareness in men and women and take action to minimize its disease consequences. Azenkot is excited about working with other students on college campuses, both national and internationally, to create awareness and outreach campaignes. In addition, she is interested in developing a study abroad program focusing on HPV education and reducing the mortality specifically from cervical cancer around the world.  Azenkot was awarded a Merck Research Fellowship for biology research in summer of 2010. She has founded and has been a student leader on several teen coalitions during her high school years.