Health Care Without Harm News

FDA Action on Cephalosporins “A Good Start"

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) praised the Food and Drug Administration’s new proposed rule to limit the use of cephalosporin, a class of antibiotics, in food animal production. However, the agency needs to follow through and make this rule final, said the health advocacy organization, as well as address other antibiotics being used in animal food production. more 

Health Group Urges Senate Committee to Act on Testimony in Support of the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), a health advocacy group, urges Senators to act on testimony presented at Thursday’s U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing in support of the Safe Chemicals Act (S. 847), which would substantially amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). It has been 35 years since TSCA was passed with no significant updates since, and in the meantime, evidence linking chemical exposures to negative health outcomes continues to rise, according to HCWH. more 

New Report Details Growth of Sustainable Hospital Food Service Programs

Health care food service programs are rapidly becoming more sustainable, following a conscious decision to provide fresher, more sustainable foods to benefit patients and the planet. A detailed accounting of these advances can be found in the 2011Menu of Change report, published by the Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Healthy Food in Health Care (HFHC) program. This report is the second in a series of reports tracking progress in this area and contains the results of a survey of U.S. hospitals and long-term care facilities that work with HCWH on implementation of sustainable food service practices.  more 

APHA Passes Resolution on PVC and Vulnerable Populations

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Hundreds Gather in Seattle for Healthy Hospital Food Conference

Hundreds of Hospital Food Service Managers, Nutritionists, Dietitians, Public Health Professionals, Authors, Suppliers, and Growers gathered in Seattle, WA, at FoodMed 2011, the nation's most important conference on sustainable food in health care, to share information and learn new strategies to develop sustainable hospital food services procurement and operations.  more 

New Tool Could Drive Health Marketplace Toward Safer Chemicals

Release of Standardized Environmental Questions for Medical Products, could drive health care marketplace toward safer chemicals, and enhance the efforts to enact chemical reform laws. The GPOs which formed the questionnaire under the direction of Practice Greenhealth, represent $130 billion in health care purchasing. Efforts from purchasers to secure safer, greener products could help push manufacturers to replace toxic chemicals that are used in products and could help efforts by the EPA to obtain more information about chemical compounds used in manufacturing.  more 

2011 Sustainable Food in Health Care Awards

The Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Healthy Food in Health Care (HFHC) Program is pleased to announce the inaugural winners of its Annual Sustainable Food Awards.  more 

Letter to President Obama on Ozone Postponement

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HCWH Applauds Premier Inc for Contract on Sustainable Chicken

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) applauds this first-of-its-kind step toward sustainable food service in Premier member hospitals and healthcare sites across the country by expanding the availability of chicken produced without antibiotics and arsenic.  more 

HCWH Launches Clean Air Promise Campaign

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Nurse Leaders Advocate for a Health Protective Ozone Standard

This week nurse leaders representing Health Care Without Harm and several nursing organizations and practice areas met with officials of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to share their concerns about poor air quality and its impacts on public health.  more 

Nurses Take Action on Quality of the Air We Breathe

On Saturday, July 30, two dozen nurses gathered in Lavonia, Michigan to attend an event for nurse leaders who felt called to act on behalf of their patients, families, and communities—to ensure all have clean air to breathe. more 

Nurses Go to Washington!

Nurses go to Washington to tell their members of Congress and the White House to support the Clean Air Act. more 

CAA Conference PR

Children, seniors, people with chronic illness and other at-risk Americans, some who live in dangerously polluted communities, will have a voice in Congress as advocates descend on Capitol Hill in support of clean air standards that reduce harmful air pollution and endanger public health; standards that are under attack by polluters and their allies in Congress. more 

HCWH launches Healthy Food in Health Care Survey & Awards Program

Health Care Without Harm launches the 2011 Healthy Food in Health Care Annual Survey & Awards Program to recognize excellence in sustainable food services at health care institutions across the country. more 

Michigan Endorses HCWH Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge

The Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) has endorsed a key concept of the Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Healthy Food in Health Care program by asking the nearly 150 hospitals across the state to sign and adopt the tenets of the HCWH Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge as part of a new initiative to help Michigan citizens combat the obesity epidemic. The Healthy Food Hospitals program is unique in that it calls for changes in the state’s food system to help prevent disease and increase the health of the population. more 

New Toolkit for Planning, Tracking and Benchmarking Healthy Food Progress

The Healthy Food in Health Care Program announces the release of the Green Guide for Health Care Food Service Credits Toolkit. This new planning and benchmarking suite offers templates, tools and tracking sheets to support hospital food service departments in utilizing the Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) Food Service Credits to plan, implement and track their progress towards achieving sustainable operations in their facilities. more 

Call to Action: Nurses Asked to Become Involved in Chemical Reform

Nurses asked to become involved in chemical reform policymaking by calling their Senators in support of the Safe Chemicals Act (S. 847). more 

Take Action: Close Toxic Air Pollution Loophole

After a 20 year delay, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a rule that will significantly reduce emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from coal burning power plants. The U.S. EPA is currently accepting comments on new standards that will do much to reduce this toxic power plant air pollution. more 

Inova Health System Joins Healthier Hospitals Initiative

Inova Health System announced today that it has joined six other major hospital systems in the Healthier Hospital Initiative (HHI), a collaborative of leading health care institutions united to help speed the health care sector toward environmental sustainability. Inova Health System joins the six hospital systems—Advocate Health Care, Catholic Healthcare West, Hospital Corporation of America, Kaiser Permanente, MedStar Health, and Partners Healthcare—along with Practice Greenhealth, Health Care Without Harm and the Center for Health Design, that formed the Healthier Hospitals Initiative in May 2010. These leading hospital systems are partnering with the other organizations to provide expertise and technical assistance and programs to help hospitals carry out the HHI Agenda. more 

FoodMed 2011: Call for Presentation Proposals

FoodMed, the nation’s premier conference on Healthy Food in Health Care, invites proposals for presentations to be delivered during the FoodMed 2011conference, October 18-19 in Seattle, Washington. more 

Hospitals Around the Country hold Earth Day Events

Hospitals and other members of the health care sector will be marking Earth Day 2011 with a wide variety of events showcasing their efforts to develop sustainable operations and reduce their environmental footprint more 

Health Care Sector Supporting Comprehensive Chemical Reform Legislation

Health care sector leaders are urging Congress to move swiftly to pass chemical reform legislation, citing the measure as critical to public health protection. As Senators introduce comprehensive legislation intended to overhaul the nation’s chemical regulatory system (the “Safe Chemicals Act of 2011”), the health sector is highlighting the link between preventing disease, containing costs, and reforming the law. more 

Carney Hospital Bans Sugar Sweetened Beverages

Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), along with the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), applauds Carney Hospital (Dorchester, MA), for their ban on sugar sweetened beverages effective April 4, 2011. The announcement came alongside Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s executive order to end sales and provision of sugary beverages from civic buildings as a measure to combat obesity. more 

Phoenix Welcomes Green Hospitals at CleanMed

Phoenix, AZ, hosts CleanMed 2011, the nation's most important and influential conference on sustainable health care, April 6-8, 2011. more 

MD Asked to Ban Arsenic in Chicken

Md Hospitals ask Lawmakers to Ban use of Arsenic in production of chickens. Arsenic is a known carcinogen and has been linked to other health problems.  more 

Health Executives Urge Colleagues to Develop Sustainable Operations

In new video, health care executives discuss the importance of greening health care, to benefit patients, staff,and the community, both in improved health and financial savings generated through sustainable health care operations. more 

Help Protect our Clean Air!

Individuals are encouraged to contact their Members of Congress to voice their opinions against legislation that would prevent the EPA from reducing air pollution under the Clean Air Act. more 

Health Care Without Harm Announces Call for Nominations for Nursing Award

Health Care Without Harm is accepting nominations for the 2011 Charlotte Brody Award. more 

HCWH Announces Nursing Awards

The Health Care Without Harm Nurses Workgroup, in conjunction with The Luminary Project, is accepting nominees for its 2012 Nursing Awards more 

Proposed Legislation Threatens Public Health

New legislation introduced by Fred Upton (R-MI), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committe, causes increased concerns about the health affects if EPA is not allowed to reduce air pollution. more 

Lawmakers Support Polluters Over Public Health

Attacks by members of Congress on the EPA's ability to regulate air pollution puts the nation's health at risk from increased asthma and other respiratory and cardiac illnesses, chronic diseases, and increased weather events such as heat waves and smog hazards. more 

Threats to EPA Harm Public Health

Attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) role in protecting air quality and regulating greenhouse gases pose significant threats to the nation’s health, and will cause increased chronic disease and higher health care costs. more 

Health Care Sector Supports Chemical Reform

On the eve of the House hearing on the “Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010,” a bill intended to overhaul the nation’s chemical regulatory system, the health care sector is highlighting the link between preventing disease, containing costs, and reforming the law. more 

Health Care Calls for Antibiotics Legislation

Health care practitioners and hospitals ask Congress for legislation to protect effectiveness of antibiotics by limiting non-therapeutic use in food animals. more 

Mercury-Free Health Care – Toward the Tipping Point

As the world’s governments begin negotiations to forge a mercury treaty, WHO and HCWH have issued a two-year progress report on the global Mercury-Free Health Care Initiative. more 

LEED Action Alert

HCWH encourages stakeholders to take action on LEED draft health care  more 

Launch of Healthier Hospitals Initiative

Press release on launch of HHI. more 

Hospitals Celebrate Earth Day with Events Showcasing Sustainability Efforts

Hospitals around the nation are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by holding events to highlight the changes they are making in their operations to protect the environment. These events are intended to increase awareness among staff, patients and the community of the work hospitals are doing to reduce their environmental footprint. Practice Greenhealth (PGH) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) have collected and posted descriptions and links to dozens of these Earth Day celebration events on their website, www.noharm/earthday. The theme of the PGH/HCWH celebration is “Every Day is Earth Day.” more 

Balanced Menus Reduces GHG Emissions, Report Finds

Health Care Without Harm and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future have released “Balanced Menus: A Pilot Evaluation of Implementation in Four San Francisco Bay Area Hospitals,” the first US examination of the impact that reduced-meat menus in hospital food service have on climate change. The report concludes that a pilot implementation of the Balanced Menus program across four participating hospitals yielded substantial savings in cost and greenhouse gas emissions that exceeded the initial 20 percent reduction goal. more 

Health Care Outlines Principles for TSCA Reform

On the eve of legislation slated to be introduced this month to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), almost two dozen organizations representing health care professionals, along with health sector businesses sent letters to Congress urging the passage of strong reform of our nation's chemical regulatory system. more 

Sugar Sweetened Soda Ban

In a national first, Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, MA, has announced the elimination of the availability of soda and sports drinks sweetened with sugar in its hospital facility.  more 

Hospitals Celebrate National Nutrition Month With Plant Based Menus

Hospitals across the nation are celebrating National Nutrition Month by changing their food service offerings and staging events to draw more attention to their participation in the Health Care Without Harm Balanced Menus program, which advocates a “Less Meat, Better Meat” approach to hospital food service operations.  more 

Baltimore Dinner Celebrates Balanced Menus

Baltimore, MD five course dinner kicks off a wide variety of hospital initiatives across the country being promoted during National Nutrition Month in which hospitals are reducing their meat purchasing to improve their carbon footprint, and improve public health and the environment, while serving healthier meals. When: Thursday, March 4th, 6:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Where: On the waterfront at the Pier 5 Hotel in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD more 

Unique Program Helps Hospitals Purchase Clean Energy

In recent months, three U.S. hospitals signed energy contracts that will save over $1.7 million in energy costs, provide them with up to 10 percent clean energy. The green energy will avoid 11,829 metric tons of CO2 being released to our atmosphere, which is equivalent to taking 2,052 cars off the road.These hospitals are among the first participants in Practice Greenhealth’s Clean Energy Solutions program, established to help the U.S. health care sector switch to cleaner, renewable energy sources. more 

Report Says Reductions in Chemical Exposure Would Make Americans Healthier

A new report, “The Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act,” finds the U.S. has the opportunity to prevent rising rates of chronic disease and reduce health care costs by overhauling federal chemical policy. Evidence is strong and growing that chemical exposures contribute significantly to the rise in many chronic diseases. The report was released by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a coalition of diverse groups united by their common concern about toxic chemicals in our homes, places of work, and products we use every day. Health Care Without Harm is a founding coalition member.  more 

HCWH Praises EPA for Phasing Out BFR

EPA has obtained commitments from the two U.S. manufacturers and largest U.S. importer of decaBDE to stop producing, using, and importing the chemical by 2013. HCWH has long fought to have the substances, which are associated with a number of human health problems, banned from the workplace. more 

Antibiotics Petition Announcement

Hundreds of individual health care practitioners, along with a number of hospitals and health care systems, have registered their support for the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009 (PAMTA). This bipartisan legislation, introduced in the House (HR 1549) and the Senate (S. 619), is intended to help curb the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, which costs society tens of billions of dollars annually.  more 

Post-Copenhagen Position Statement

The UN negotiations did not deliver the legally binding agreement needed for reducing emissions to protect the climate and people’s health. Rather, world leaders managed to come up with a “letter of intent”, a non-binding declaration without clear commitments from any government.  more 

HCWH Announces Nominations for Nursing Awards

Health Care Without Harm has announced a call for nominees for two major nursing awards in the field of sustainable health care - the Charlotte Brody Award and the Hollie Shaner-McRae Nursing Student Essay Contest.  more 

HCWH Response to EPA Release

Health Care Without Harm issued a statement of support of EPA's finding that Climate Change is a threat to public health. more 

Obama Urged to Deliver "Prescription for Healthy Planet"

In an advertisement in today's issue of The New York Times, health care leaders representing millions of American health professionals, along with hospitals and other health care groups from across the country, ask President Obama to deliver a "Prescription for a Healthy Planet" at next month's Copenhagen climate negotiations. more 

Health Care Leaders Ask Obama for Strong Climate Agreement

Health Leaders from across the United States have sent a letter to President Obama to call his attention to the impact of climate change on public health and the resulting challenges to the health care sector to meet increased demands for services. more 

Toxic Chemicals Found in Doctors and Nurses

Physicians for Social Responsibility, in partnership with the American Nurses Association and Health Care Without Harm released the "Hazardous Chemicals In Health Care" report, detailing the first investigation ever of chemicals found in the bodies of health care professionals. The inquiry found that all of the 20 participants had toxic chemicals associated with health care in their bodies. These chemicals are all associated with chronic illness and physical disorders. more 

HCWH "Balanced Menus Challenge" Begins

HCWH has announced the "Balanced Menus Challenge," a voluntary commitment by healthcare institutions to reduce their meat offerings in patient meals and hospital cafeterias by 20 percent in 12 months. Balanced Menus is a climate change reduction strategy that also protects the effectiveness of antibiotics and promotes good nutrition. Fourteen hospitals already are participating in the national Balanced Menus Challenge, which was developed by HCWH's Healthy Food in Healthcare Initiative. more 

HCWH Partners with Clinton Climate Initiative

HCWH has entered into an agreement with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, to develop programs to help hospitals and healthcare facilities reduce their environmental impact, particularly in the area of carbon reduction. HCWH will work with CCI to develop building energy efficiency retrofit projects and other carbon reduction strategies in healthcare facilities. more 

AMA Passes Resolution Supporting Sustainable Food System

The American Medical Association (AMA) has approved a new policy resolution in support of practices and policies within health care systems that promote and model a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system. The resolution also calls on the AMA to work with health care and public health organizations to educate the health care community and the public about the importance of healthy and ecologically sustainable food systems that "provide food and beverages of naturally high nutritional quality." more 

A Healing Garden Grows in Bhopal

Health Care Without Harm has filmed and produced its first video for NoHarm Productions^TM. "A Healing Garden Grows in Bhopal" is the story of the Sambhavna Clinic, a non-profit holistic health clinic in Bhopal, India, built to treat those injured by the Union Carbide toxic gas release in 1984, which killed thousands of people outright. more 

Proyecto Luminarias Launched

Health Care Without Harm and The Luminary Project are pleased to announce the launch of Proyecto Luminarias, a Spanish language version of The Luminary Project which highlights the stories of nurses in Spanish speaking countries who are addressing environmental concerns in health care. more 

Another Major Yogurt Maker Ends Use of Bovine Growth Hormone

Dannon has announced to Health Care Without Harm that it will stop using milk from cattle injected with the growth hormone rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) to make its yogurt products by the end of 2009. Dannon responded less than two weeks after competitor Yoplait announced its own plans to eliminate rBGH from its product line. Both companies announced their plans after a number of major health facilities announced their intentions to provide only dairy products produced without rBGH to their patients, staff and visitors. more 

HCWH Lauds Catholic Healthcare West for Rejecting Genetically Engineered and Cloned Foods

The nation's leading Catholic hospital system took the position in recognition of the serious health, environmental and ethical concerns raised by these untested technologies. The decision of CHW to include GE sugar beets in its new food policy has significance for the entire health care food market and perhaps, the entire sugar beet industry. more