[SustainableTompkins] sustainable health care

[George Adams]

("tick, tick tick...I don't know if I want to open this package ;)"


with his permission, I paste in a e-mail from my son about a panel
discussion he led at NYU on the dubious environmental sensitivity of our
present save-lives-at-all-costs and ignore-people-who-can't-pay US health
paradigms.  We are all so anxious about our health and the astronomical
costs of even incremental increases in its quality [and perhaps under all
that, just denial of our own mortality], that we don't
seem to worry where all the needles and dirty bandages wind up...

hey dad,
>
> i led a program discussion in my dorm tonight called "the birth of the
> eco-clinic?" it was about how during all the recent talk of health care
> reform and the likes of Bill Gates and Bono campaigning to get state
> of the art medical care to all corners of the globe, few people have
> questioned what this global ratcheting up of medical systems might
> mean for the environment, how every medical procedure involves
> consumption of materials, an increase in pollution, and waste, and how
> perhaps it is time health care reformers, philanthropists, and
> activists talked to eco-activists and environmentalists. we read
> excerpts from Jessica Pierce and Andrew Jameton's 'the ethics of
> environmentally responsible heath care' (suggesting the creation of
> 'green health centers') and Daniel Callahan's 'false hopes: why
> America's quest for perfect health is a recipe for failure.' it was a
> great discussion and people were more interested than we thought
> (about thirty people showed up and wanted to stay to talk long after
> the discussion had ended). moral of the story: exercise and eat well
> so you can enjoy old age, and Danny, sherry and i can enjoy you in old
> age, instead of paying ridiculous sums of money to fix you, and
> subsequently being harmful to the environment, a common side effect of
> our seldom-questioned, 'state of the art' medical practices and
> research, into which we dump about twenty percent of our
> resources/income.
>
> also, here are some of the people i was talking about that
> participated in the extreme green panel discussion:
>
> http://www.dancingrabbit.org/
>
> http://freegan.info/
>
> http://noimpactman.typepad.com/
>