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Healing Garden Grows in Bhopal
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.  enlarge video
November 3, 2011
Health Care Without Harm News
Contact: Eileen Secrest  540-479-0168

APHA Passes Resolution on PVC and Vulnerable Populations

Arlington, VA — This week at the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual public meeting, the APHA passed a major policy that supports phasing out toxic PVC plastic in schools, daycare centers, hospitals, public housing and other facilities with vulnerable populations. You can read the APHA’s policy statement here .

Stephen Lester from Center for Health, Environment and Justice introduced the resolution, with great support from colleagues in the APHA Environment and Occupational Health Sections.

This resolution by one of the largest association of health professionals in the United States is an important new voice calling for government agencies to take action to address the risks posed by PVC, and endocrine disrupting chemicals like phthalates and dioxin released by vinyl. It comes at a time when a growing chorus of leading businesses like Google and healthcare institutions are supporting efforts to reduce and phase out the use of PVC.

Read the Center for Health, Environment and Justice press release on the resolution's passage here

Heath Care without Harm, an international coalition of more than 500 organizations in 53 countries, is working to transform the health care sector, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. To learn more about HCWH's work, visit our website at www.noharm.org, our YouTube channel at HCwithoutharm, and our twitter feed at hcwithoutharm.

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Webinar: How Sustainable Hospitals Are Achieving Major Savings

Health Care Without Harm and The Commonwealth Fund present a webinar based on the recent groundbreaking findings on how hospitals can achieve savings and reduce their carbon footprint through sustainability programs. This one-hour webinar draws on the findings of a recent Health Care Without Harm Research Collaborative/ Commonwealth Fund study, "Can Sustainable Hospitals Help Bend the Health Care Cost Curve?" which shows that savings from interventions to reduce energy use and waste, and achieve operating room supply efficiencies could exceed $5.4 billion over five years and $15 billion over 10 years for the health care sector. In addition to detailing the study findings, the webinar includes presentations from two health systems about why they chose to focus on sustainability and what challenges and rewards are in store.

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