Letter to President Trump

President Donald Trump
White House
Washington, D.C.

May 3, 2017

Dear President Trump,

On behalf of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate Health (Consortium), I am writing to urge you to remain a party to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.  The Consortium includes societies representing half of our nation’s physicians.  We know that, as the leader of our nation, you wish to make the best decisions to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our people and our future.  We hope to bring some of the country’s leading physicians to the White House to meet with you as soon as possible about this crucial decision.

The nation’s pediatricians, internists, family physicians, obstetrician gynecologists, geriatricians, allergists, and others, have come together to alert you that climate change is a health hazard which places the health of millions of people at risk.  Climate change is currently having a major impact on the health of the Americans we see every day in our practices.  It is leading to injuries and deaths due to extreme storms; severe heat waves; reduced air quality associated with wildfires, allergens, and heat; spread of infectious and vector-borne diseases; and recurrent flooding with the tides due to sea level rise.  The most immediately vulnerable are children, pregnant women, those who work outdoors, people with chronic heart, lung, or mental health conditions, the elderly and people with limited financial resources.

Because of the seriousness of this problem, the Consortium—composed of medical societies representing half the physicians in the U.S.—released a report titled “Medical Alert! Climate Change is Harming Our Health.”  The good news is that the unfettered growth of clean renewable energy will deliver immediate health benefits through cleaner air and water; and it will reduce the chances of even more dramatic harms to our health in the future.  Any short-term costs resulting from adopting policies that reduce fossil fuel use will be offset by savings in reduced health costs.

We hope to meet you in person to share more information about the climate-health connection.

Sincerely,

Mona Sarfaty, MD MPH FAAFP, Consortium Director
www.medsocietiesforclimatehealth.org