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Tell President Obama to cancel the Vogtle Loan Guarantee! We don’t want or need new nuclear reactors and we don’t think that taxpayers should be on the hook to support a mature industry.
Today there are 51 million uninsured
Americans, and many more who are underinsured, cannot afford co-pays or
pharmaceuticals, or simply lack access to basic health care for geographic and
myriad other reasons. Worldwide, at least 1 billion people live in urban slums;
1.1 billion people lack access to safe, clean drinking water, resulting in 1.8
million child deaths/year; 2 billion have no electricity; 2.6 billion do not
have adequate sanitation services; 2.8 billion live on less than $2/day; 3
billion have never made a phone call; 3.8 billion have no cash or credit with
which to make purchases; and 770 million are illiterate. Women and people of
color continue to suffer social, educational, legal, and political
marginalization.
The gap between rich and poor has widened internationally, and is greatest here
in the U.S. The government is spending trillions on wars and militarism which
cutting basic services, while states are experiencing budget crises. Meanwhile,
tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans prop up an inherently unjust and unstable
system. Holocaust survivor Primo Levi addressed a similar phenomenon decades
ago, writing “A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom
and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a
powerful one too powerful.” It is sad to note that less than 4% of the combined
wealth of the 225 richest individuals in the world would pay for ongoing access
to basic education, health care (including reproductive health care), adequate
food, safe water, and adequate sanitation for all humans (UNDP).
I am delighted to be a part of the Wealth without Health panel. For those
seeking further information, see my website covering public health and social
justice at http://www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org
of http://www.phsj.org. There you will
find articles and open-access powerpoints covering topics such as single payer
health care, environmental health, women’s health, food safety, war and
militarism, the role of corporations in undermining public health, and much
more. The site gets approximately 14,000 page views per month and is always
accepting new material. Other worthwhile sites, noted among the hundreds of
external links you will find, include the Social Medicine portal at http://www.socialmedicine.org/, the Medicine and
Social Justice blog at http://medicinesocialjustice.blogspot.com/,
and Physicians for a National Health Program at http://www.pnhp.org/.
See you in April.
martin
Tell your senator: Keep the energy efficiency bill clean.
Toxic coal ash poisons drinking water and wafts on the air. We need protection. Call your representative today!
Pediatric Environmental Health Toolkit
The Toolkit is a combination of easy-to-use reference guides for health providers and user-friendly health education materials on preventing exposures to toxic chemicals and other substances that affect infant and child health. Read more »
Climate Change Flyer
Please make use of this great resource explaining the basics of climate change: what it is, why its happening, and what we can do to stop it. This flyer is great to use at tabling events for the general public, and doubles as an attractive poster when unfolded. Read more »
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