All Entries in the "Health and Human Rights" Category
Senate Bill 775: Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act
Lead poisoning is one of the most common environmental health hazards for children in the United States today, with more than 640,000 children at high-risk for exposure in California alone. As a neuro-toxin, the health impacts of even low-level exposure include development of learning disabilities, damage to the kidneys and central nervous system, underdevelopment, and at very [...]
Action Alert – Wilshire Plaza Hotel
Little did the Coming Clean conference attendees (including PSR-LAʼs Martha Arguello and Emily Snider) know when they left by bus for their “L.A. toxic tour” on Saturday that they would return to find a picket of 75 hotel workers blocking the driveway. Being forced to cross a union picket line does not bode well with [...]
Interview with Gregg Bloche – Is It Torture?
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, American Friends Service Committee and the Program for Torture Victims are working to hold California licensees accountable to the Geneva Conventions – to not engage in torture. To further the campaign, on April 1 PSR-LA spoke with Gregg Bloche M.D., PhD. He is visiting Professor of Law at UCLA, and he [...]
Iran and the Bomb War is not the answer
In a region decimated by war and conflict, a U.S. led bombing campaign against Iran would make matters worse—especially for U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress must oppose U.S. bombing and instead work for a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue by urging the administration to engage in talks with the Iranian government. [...]
655,000 Iraq War Deaths Watch Ideologues Slander Good Science
On October 10, 2006 the esteemed medical journal The Lancet released an epidemiological study concluding that 655,000 Iraqis died from war-related injury and disease from March 2003 to July 2006. This shockingly high figure has drawn attacks from the Bush administration and right-wing pundits. Speaking as a medical doctor, I wish to set the record [...]
Goings On Around the Office
Abuzz with activity, PSR-LA has recently hired two bright young people, said adieu to two great workers, and seen interns and volunteers come and go. First, we wish to welcome Margaret Wacker M.D. to the PSR-LA board of directors. Dr. Wacker, a neurosurgeon affiliated with Kaiser Permanente in San Bernardino, helped develop the recent conference [...]
2006 California Legislative Wrap-up
P SR-LA was at the forefront of a number of legislative battles in Sacramento this year. There were many victories and a few defeats. To follow is a snapshot of how our busy year in Sacramento went. Signed AB 32: A landmark global warming initiative that imposes the nation’s first cap on greenhouse gas emissions. [...]
Lobbying Against the War
The sun was shining in Washington D.C. as PSR-LA staffers, Jonathan Parfrey and Sharmeen Premjee, and I traveled by cab past the city’s monuments, museums and stately marble buildings. It was impossible not to think of Rome. But this was America’s Capital, fat with prosperity, blessed with peace and untouched by war since 1864. Other [...]
655,000 Iraq War Deaths
Watch Ideologues Slander Good Science The Huffington Post published this article on October 16, 2006 On October 10, 2006 the esteemed medical journal The Lancet released an epidemiological study concluding that 655,000 Iraqis died from war-related injury and disease from March 2003 to July 2006. This shockingly high figure has drawn attacks from the Bush [...]
Experts Assess Iraq’s Horrific Toll
On Saturday, October 21, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles hosted a national conference at UCLA’s Kerckhoff Hall on the medical consequences of the Iraq war. Over the course of the day, more than 230 people attended this moving event that included presentations of the war’s health impacts on both Iraqi civilians and American service personnel. [...]
LA’s Secret Military History
On June 10, PSR-LA will offer the first-ever Military Tour of Southern California – and you’re invited. This all-day tour will carry PSR members and supporters to the military sites that have shaped the world and, in some cases, the health of Californians. On June 10, PSR-LA will offer the first-ever Military Tour of Southern California [...]
Chernobyl, Twenty Years Later
A Public Health and Environmental Assessment Almost twenty years has passed since I last traveled to Ukraine, a mere six months prior to the terrible Chernobyl disaster of April 26, 1986. In the fall of 1985, no one in Kiev appeared concerned about the four reactors just seventy miles away – and yet after that [...]
End the War
Congress has the power to end the war in Iraq. But Congress but will not act unless forced by public pressure. The war in Iraq has raged for three years – with no end in sight. Despite public support waning, Congress has refused to debate the war since the initial authorization in 2002. And, since 2002, Congress has given Bush over $300 [...]
Volunteer Physicians Needed for PSR-LA’s Gun Violence Prevention Program
Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Violence Prevention Program works to bring a public health focus to the violence prevention debate. PSR recognizes the unique voice of health care professionals as experts with first-hand knowledge of the tragic effects of gun violence, and strives to assert this position by becoming among the foremost advocates of firearm injury [...]
Human Cost of Iraq War Lancet journal asserts over 100,000 additional deaths from U.S. occupation
Although Defense Secretary Rumsfeld routinely dismisses the importance of noncombatant casualties—in May 2003 he told reporter Helen Thomas “we don’t track them (Iraqi dead)”—it is an indisputable fact that innocent men, women and children are the most common victims of war. Efforts to substantiate the number of Iraqi dead have include www.iraqbodycount. net, a website [...]