Health Care Without Harm Project

Health Care Without Harm is an international coalition of over 300 organizations in 27 countries dedicated to eliminating environmental pollution from health care. Members include more than 80 hospitals, the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and others.

Medical Waste - What's the Problem?

Even though health care professionals take an oath to "do not harm," the nation's hospitals are a major source of harm to public health, due to emissions of dioxin and mercury from unnecessary incineration by 2000 plus medical waste incinerators.

Dioxin is:

• Created when products containing chlorine, like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) I.V. bags, are burned.
• A carcinogen that also adversely affects reproduction, growth and development, with some health effects occurring at extremely low exposure levels.
• Persistent for years in the environment, and in the fat tissue of animals where it bioaccumulates. The EPA estimates that adults consume 300-600 times the safe dioxin levels by the agency, while children consume 50 times more than the "safe" level.
• Present in humans in amounts at or near those known to cause metabolic and immune changes in laboratory animals.

Mercury is:

• Released into the atmosphere when thermometers, blood pressure devices, batteries and other mercury-containing products are burned.

• Contaminating the nation's fish supply through waterway pollution. EPA reports there are 1660 waterways in 37 states where it is not safe to eat the fish due to mercury poisoning. These "fish consumption advisories" have doubled in the last three years.

• A toxic metal that can cause birth defects and severe neurological effects. In its recent Mercury Report to Congress, EPA warned that up to 1.6 million pregnant women and women of childbearing years may be at risk from mercury contamination due to fish consumption.

What is being done about this serious problem?

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) is working to encourage hospitals to:

• change their purchasing practices to eliminate mercury and minimize PVC
• adopt aggressive waste segregation and recycling programs
• prevent waste at the source
• help hospitals make the needed changes to become more sustainable

What You Can Do:

1. Approach your hospital about working with HCWH to evaluate and reform waste management and pollution prevention practices. HCWH has produced 12-page brochure outlining pollution prevention practices for hospitals. The publication also provides an overview of the campaign's mission and goals. HCWH has a report, "Greening" Hospitals: An Analysis of Pollution Prevention in America's Top Hospitals. A hard copy of this report can be ordered from HCWH or it is available online on the Environmental Working Group's Web site. These are excellent resources to help people change their institutions in concrete ways.
2. Sign on to and encourage others to endorse the physician's consensus statement, developed by PSR, that is circulating the country.
3. Arrange a briefing or Grand Rounds on pollution prevention, to be delivered by GBPSR's Ted Schettler, MD MPH, at your hospital.

For more information about the Health Care Without Harm Boston Project, contact Bill Ravanesi MA MPH at (617) 524-2366 or ravanesi@attbi.com, or the national office at the Health Care Without Harm web site.