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medpundit |
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Friday, May 24, 2002One of the letters,however,is even more anti-Israeli than the original editorial. To our shame, it is signed by many American doctors, most with positions in departments of public health at some of our “finest” universities. Their most ludicrous statement: “Members of the public-health and medical community issue an urgent appeal to the citizens of Israel and our colleagues around the world to demand a halt to the systematic violation of medical neutrality by the IDF at the command of their government. The gratuitous and wilful disruption of water supplies, electric power, and, through long-term and severe curfews, collection of refuse, combined with the destruction of the public-health and medical infrastructure present grave threats to the civilian population. A similar call to the Palestinian people to demand their government ends the violence and respects medical neutrality is now impossible because of the systematic destruction of civil authority by IDF and Israeli Government actions. Wherever and whenever control becomes feasible, we appeal to the Palestinian people and our colleagues around the world to demand the Palestinian authorities ensure the safety of all medical and first-responder staff as well.” Those Israelis. They’re preventing the Palestinians from hearing the pleas of the civilized world for peace and tolerance. Surely, if they could only hear us they would stop the suicide bombing. Sheesh. What planet do these people come from? Oh, that’s right, the planet of Schools of Public Health. Someone needs to tell them that infrastructure gets destroyed by wars, that's how wars are won. Destroying an enemy's infrastructure is not the same as specifically targeting their medical facilities or intentionally preventing them from tending to their sick and wounded. Oh, yeah, and someone needs to tell them that blowing up civilians repeatedly is a definite threat to public health. Just for the record, here are the signatories of the letter: “Signatories of the statement are: William Bicknell, Lewis Pepper, H Patricia Hynes, Richard Campbell, Richard Clapp, Thomas Webster, Nerissa Wu, Leslie Boden, Rana Charafeddine, and Robert Fredericksen, Boston University School of Public Health; Allen E. Silverstone, State University of NY, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse; Victoria Ozonoff, Massachusetts Department of Public Health; Max Pepper, School of Public Health, Craig Slatin and Charles Levenstein, Lowell, and Janice G Raymond, Amherst, University of Massachusetts; Howard Hu, Leslie London, Don Milton, Richard Levins, Eileen McNeely, Melissa Perry, Harvard School of Public Health; K H Barney, American Medical Resources Foundation; Anthony Robbins, Beth Rosenberg, Tufts University School of Medicine; David Wallinga, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Ted Schettler, Boston Medical Center; Dan Wohlfeiler, Robert Harrison, and R Ruth Linden, University of California, San Francisco; Lori Dorfman, Berkeley Media Studies Group; Robert M Gould, Kaiser Hospital, San Jose, CA; Tim K Takaro, University of Washington Schools of Medicine and Public Health and Community Medicine; Steven Wing, Annelies Van Rie, Trude Bennett, Kathy Rose, Carl Shy, Peter Dorman, University of North Carolina; Mark Eisenberg, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School; Bill Ravanesi Health Care Without Harm; Arthur Mazer and Kathleen H Mazer, Massachusetts Public Health Association; Blanca Estela Lemus Ruiz, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, Mexico; David Barkin, Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana, Xochimilco Mexico; Bill Patterson, OH+R; Wendy Orr, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Howard Frumkin, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; John Morawetz, ICWUC; June M Fisher; Darius D Sivin, Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health; Dianne Plantamura, New England College of Occupational/Environmental Medicine; Joyce C Lashof, School of Public Health, U C Berkeley, CA; Cathy Walker, National Health and Safety Director, CAW-CANADA; Moira Cunningham and Enrico Cagliero, Harvard Medical School; Sonia Baur, Garberville, CA; Peter Kandela, Ashford, UK; Rodney Ehrlich, University of Cape Town.” By the way, this editorial was written April 13, a full two weeks before the Jerusalem Post exposed a movement afoot in the World Medical Association to oust the Israel Medical Association from the organization. (the link to the original newspaper story no longer works, unfortunately, but I quoted a lot of it in the original post.) This editorial makes me think the movement was very real, and not the “hoax” that the WMA says it was.The original Jerusalem Post story had said that the motion to oust the Israelis had been introduced by the British Medical Association. I'm sure the editors of The Lancet are prominent members. Luckily, the anti-semitic groups within the WMA were shouted down by other, more just-minded medical associations within the organization, and from without. For more information on the dust up, click here. posted by Sydney on 5/24/2002 06:39:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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