The 'Guerrilla' Minister.(Brazilian health minister Jose Serra)(Brief Article)

Brazilian health minister Jose Serra has never been one to dodge a fight. In the early 1960s he presided over the left-wing National Students Union, which lashed out at the "military gorillas" plotting a "reactionary coup d'etat." The next morning the Students Union headquarters was burned to the ground and Serra was driven into exile for 11 years. Brazil is a democracy now, and Serra, 59, is a senior member of the establishment. He pushes paper, not pamphlets, these days, but his guerrilla style of administration has become his personal trademark.

Just ask the tobacco industry. When Serra took over the Health Ministry in late 1998, he declared war on cigarette makers, calling them purveyors of death. Brazil now boasts some of the toughest anti-tobacco legislation in the world, including a ban on all advertising. He bullied insurance companies into offering affordable medical coverage. Then he went after pharmaceutical companies, slashing "abusive prices" for brand-name drugs and flooding the market with cheap homemade generics. Says one advertising mogul, "He plays hardball."

Big-fisted politics plays well in the grandstands, but it's risky business for a country still trying to woo foreign investors. Riskier still for Serra, who wants badly to lead Brazil into the era of market- friendly reforms. Still, his public-health initiatives are feted at home and abroad. Delegations from as far away as Paris and ...