[SustainableTompkins] sustainable health care

[Tony Del Plato]

Thanks George for sharing your son's message and lessons for us all. I'd
like to share this with members of the TC Healthcare Action Group and would
like your permission.
best
Tony Del Plato

On 10/12/07, George Adams <ghadams at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ("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/
> >
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-- 
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of
the believer.
Albert Einstein