Bird Flu & Farmworkers: An Update on H5N1 During Influenza Season

As the Chief Medical Officer for Migrant Clinicians Network, Laszlo Madaras, MD, MPH is responsible for the oversight of MCN clinical activities. He also serves as a subject matter expert for various topics in migrant and immigrant health including COVID-19. Over the last 30 years, in parts of Africa, Central America, South America, the Pacific Islands, and the United States, Dr. Madaras has served thousands for wide-ranging ailments, including newly emerging diseases.  

Dr. Madaras arrived to in the United States as a Hungarian refugee in 1968 at the age of seven and eventually became a US citizen. Dr. Madaras received his MD and MPH from Tufts University School of Medicine in 1993. Early experiences include working as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow in pediatrics in Gabon, West Africa; as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Congo; and as a pesticide review manager at the US Environmental Protection Agency. He worked on the Congo/Rwandan border during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and on the Hungarian border with the former Yugoslavia in 1995.  

Since 1996, Dr. Madaras has been a board-certified family physician in both inpatient and outpatient medicine in Pediatrics, Adult Medicine, and Obstetrics. He served as a frontline clinician at the Keystone Health Center where he cared for farmworkers and their families and became Assistant Medical Director from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, he became a hospitalist in Chambersburg and Waynesboro Hospitals in south central Pennsylvania, where he continues to work part time. In 2016, he became a Senior Fellow of Hospital Medicine. In 2020, he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. 

In addition, Dr. Madaras has worked as a staff physician in Tuberculosis control at the Pennsylvania State Health Department since 2012, and regularly teaches US-based medical students on an international health rotation in Honduras. Dr. Madaras also teaches hospital medicine to Penn State nurse practitioner and physician assistant students and medical residents at Summit Health.  

Amy K. Liebman, MPA, MA (she/her) has devoted her career to improving the safety and health of disenfranchised populations. She joined Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) in 1999 and currently serves as the Chief Program Officer: Workers, Environment and Climate. With MCN she has established nationally recognized initiatives to improve the health and safety of immigrant workers and their families. She oversees programs ranging from integrating occupational and environmental medicine into primary care to designing worker safety interventions. She is a national leader in addressing worker safety and environmental justice through the community health worker (CHW) model. She has been a strong advocate for worker health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading programs to improve access to care and culturally contextual education for migrants and immigrants. Prior to her current position, she directed numerous environmental health and justice projects along the US-Mexico Border including an award-winning, community-based hygiene education program that reached thousands of families living without water and sewerage services. She has spearheaded policy efforts within the American Public Health Association to support the protection of agricultural workers and served on the federal advisory committee to the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs. Her programs have won several awards including the 2008 EPA Children’s Environmental Health Champion Award and the 2015 National Safety Council Research Collaboration Award. In 2011, Liebman received the Lorin Kerr Award, an APHA/Occupational Health and Safety Section honor recognizing public health professionals for their dedication and sustained efforts to improve the lives of workers. And in 2024 she was honored with the Shelley Davis Humanitarian Award for her commitment to improving farmworker health and safety. She is a past Chair of APHA’s Occupational Health and Safety. Liebman has been the principal investigator and project manager of numerous government and privately sponsored projects. She has authored articles, bilingual training manuals and other educational materials dealing with environmental and occupational health and migrants. Liebman has a master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Master of Arts from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Liebman has traveled throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, and Europe. She is an avid soccer fan and loves to spend time with her husband and two sons. Together they spend a lot of time outdoors.