Letter from the Executive Director: Our Health, Our Future

Dear Friend:

As PSR-LA approaches our 30th anniversary, I want to thank you for your loyalty and ongoing support. You have helped us grow from a small volunteer-based chapter with a single, imperative mission — to stop the arms race and nuclear proliferation of the Cold War — into a 5,000 member-strong organization that tackles a breadth of issues critical to human health, the environment, and survival.

Throughout the years, your support has been invaluable. You’ve helped us educate physicians, students, the media, and the public about nuclear weapons, violence, and environmental threats to health. You’ve helped us meet with elected representatives in Sacramento and Washington to advocate for smarter public policies. You’ve helped us train community organizations about mercury, lead, pesticides and other dangerous chemicals. You’ve helped us grow, and you’ve helped us win. And winning, for us, means reaching people with our message of health and successfully making policy and social change towards a safer, healthier world.

So I am proud to tell you now that we will soon launch Our Health, Our Future – PSR-LA’s 30th Anniversary Campaign to acknowledge our three decades of innovative advocacy, the thousands of people who made it possible, and to set our sights on a new horizon. By building upon our successes, we will move toward realizing an alternative vision– a vision that sound national security and environmental policies can strengthen, not harm, the economy and can protect all communities from preventable harm and illness.

To continue and expand our important work, and in honor of our 30th anniversary, PSR-LA has set a goal of raising 0,000 in individual contributions by December 2010.

As a physicians’ organization, we are uniquely poised to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Whether the topic is nuclear weapons, toxic chemicals, or climate change, we know that the voice of physicians and health professionals makes a vital difference in the way that decision-makers perceive an issue and its threat to health. The Our Health, Our Future Campaign will help us expand our peace and security efforts, more powerfully address chemicals, pesticides, climate change, and increase physician involvement in all of our programs.

In order to accomplish this ambitious agenda, we are calling upon our closest allies for support. PSR-LA’s agenda is life-saving – whether the threats come from chronic illness associated with toxins in the environment or the devastating effects of nuclear weapons, PSR-LA is leading the way to protect human health.

Please help us celebrate our 30th anniversary and launch the Our Health, Our Future campaign by making a special 30th Anniversary gift to PSR-LA.

We know that you receive many requests for support from many worthy organizations. We hope you are able to support as many of them as you can. Here’s why we believe you should donate to PSR-LA:

• PSR-LA is the ONLY physicians and health advocate group speaking out on the health effects of nuclear weapons. Our founding members created the model for socially responsible physicians, and we continue to be an innovator in protecting human health.

• PSR-LA uniquely bridges the environment, health, and social justice. We believe public policies should improve environmental health for all communities, and not pit environmental health against economic well-being.

• The average amount of training physicians receive on environmental connections to health is six hours, and no information is provided about the health effects of nuclear weapons. PSR-LA’s unique Ambassador program ensures that local health professionals have the knowledge and skills they need to advocate for protective public health policies. PSR-LA provides specialized technical assistance to community groups about toxic chemicals and reproductive health, pesticides, lead, and other environmental health hazards. These groups are then able to educate their constituents to make healthier decisions for their families while advocating for safer and just polices.

• PSR-LA creates and leads effective local and statewide coalitions, making your gift go even further.

  

For nearly thirty years now, the Los Angeles Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility has been a leader in innovative advocacy. We were the first PSR chapter to embark upon international physician-to-physician diplomacy efforts, the first chapter to address environmental threats to health, and the first to recognize the epidemic of gun violence. Most recently, we pioneered the Physician Ambassador program which is being used as a model for other PSR chapters and physician groups in the nation. And you can count on us to develop even more effective public health advocacy tools in the years ahead.

As you make your decisions this holiday season, we hope you will choose to give and give generously to PSR-LA. Gifts to PSR-LA are fully tax-deductible.

Sincerely,

Martha Dina Argüello, Executive Director

P.S. If we receive your gift by December 31, you will receive a special PSR-LA Earth-friendly reusable tote bag.