Science, medical, and bioethics journals are setting themselves up as the new political resistance to Trump policies, most particularly around global warming controversies. For example, The Lancet published a piece blaming the Los Angeles fires on climate change, which is hardly a medical issue properly understood. A bit later — as I wrote about here — a major bioethics journal published an advocacy article asserting that it is up to bioethicists to prevent global warming.
Not to be undone, JAMA has just published a column decrying Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and claiming that preventing climate change is now up to doctors.
From, “Defying Environmental Deregulation:”
These policy changes may appear catastrophic for effective climate action, but they should galvanize the health care sector to assume a leading role. Health professionals and organizations possess unique credibility and influence to advocate for decarbonization and policies protecting planetary and public health.
Disagree. Becoming so blatantly political would corrode the medical sector’s “unique credibility.”
But the authors were just getting started:
At the macro level, health care institutions and leaders have opportunities to advocate for ambitious climate policies at the state and local levels. The sector can drive systemic changes that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by supporting measures such as renewable energy mandates, carbon pricing mechanisms, and energy efficiency standards. For example, Maryland increased its renewable energy standard from 7.5% to 50% by 2030 during the last period of federal deregulation. The active participation of health care in shaping these policies ensures that health and equity remain central to climate solutions.
Good grief. A “standard” doesn’t mean the thing is actually accomplished. Moreover, I suspect that the health sector’s influence in a cobalt-blue state like Maryland was not necessary or determinative in its establishment.
The authors want the health sector to reduce its own emissions:
At the meso level, health care systems and professional societies are uniquely positioned to model and implement sustainable practices. Professional societies can integrate sustainability into clinical practice guidelines, prioritize climate-health research, and host environmentally conscious conferences.
Sorry, patients would rather that doctors’ time spent at medical symposia be about clinical medicine, not environmental political activism.
Finally, there is the micro level:
On the micro level, individual health care professionals can catalyze change through everyday actions and education. Physicians can integrate patient and planetary health co-benefit prescribing into their practices—for example, recommending walking to work or adopting a plant-based diet—promoting actions that can simultaneously benefit individual health and the environment. Individuals can also incorporate climate-related education into their didactics to prepare the next generation to address climate challenges with confidence. In particular, physicians can leverage just-in-time teaching moments to ensure colleagues and trainees understand the immediate implications of climate on health outcomes, such as linking heat waves to increased emergency department visits for heatstroke, or air pollution increasing admissions for asthma exacerbations.
No. Most of us want our doctors focused on our individual medical concerns, not preaching environmental agendas. Besides, few people, other than those already fixated on promoting this issue, will care what doctors may think about global warming policy.
Perhaps the AMA should launch a new journal: PJAMA, the Political Journal of the American Medical Association. That would free JAMA to focus exclusively on medicine and leave politics to more suitable publications.