Environment & Health Program
Collaboration Yields Valuable Health Resources
PSR’s partnerships with allied organizations in the climate movement have yielded valuable health resources for advocates.
Highlighting the trends in the emerging scientific evidence on fracking:
- Serious harm to public health, and no regulatory framework can prevent those harms.
- Drinking water contamination from drilling, fracking, and disposal of fracking waste.
- Fracked gas is a grave threat to the climate, and may be worse than coal due to substantial methane leaks.
- Fracking infrastructure poses serious exposure risks to those living nearby.
- Fracking raises environmental justice issues.
A 15% nationwide reduction in annual electric consumption means:
$20 Billion
Up to this amount in avoided health harms.
6+
More than six lives saved each day.
30,000
Nearly this amount of fewer asthma attacks.
Nuclear Weapons Abolition
Reframing Nuclear Disarmament as a Health and Humanitarian Issue PSR’s Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program has contributed to the international civil society movement that has tactfully reframed the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons as an urgent health and humanitarian issue.
Physicians and health professionals’ medical expertise contributed to the successful adoption of the treaty:
2013
PSR and IPPNW co-released the report Nuclear Famine: 2 Billion at Risk?, which offers scientific data on the global health and climatic impacts of a regional nuclear war. This foundational study grounded ICAN’s claims about the immense and horrific humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons in scientific evidence.
2016
PSR board member and co-president of IPPNW Ira Helfand, MD contributed testimony on the medical consequences of nuclear weapons to the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) established by the U.N. General Assembly. The OEWG voted to recommend to the U.N. First Committee that the U.N. sanction negotiations for a treaty.
2017
PSR’s team of physicians attended the U.N. negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to lobby national delegations to cast their vote in support of the treaty. PSR delivered 22 “yes” votes, contributing to a successful vote of 122 nations in support of the adoption of the treaty, one against and one abstention.