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Climate change’s threats to human health and life are growing. Will you join our latest effort to roll back climate change?
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
Climate change’s threats to human health and life are growing. Will you join our latest effort to roll back climate change?
Many products we buy are seriously toxic – they can disrupt the hormone system, cause cancer, even birth defects. Join us in asking major retailers to remove toxic products from their shelves.
Climate Change Flyer
Handout was developed by writer Bruni Estrada and graphic designer Daniel Pizarro, in collaboration with Mathias Pollock, Program Coordinator - Student PSR. To see more of Daniel's graphic design work visit http://www.danielpizarro.info. Read more »
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 »
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