Historically, if you look back at the struggle to end slavery, the struggle to gain womens' right to vote, the labor movement - these were big social transitions in which there was a movement on the ground in which a lot of people died, but it also took an independent political party.
I was recruited to sort of be the doc to advocate for communities that were struggling with polluting incinerators, polluting coal plants, toxic waste sites, etc.
I did my residency on the South Side of Chicago.We were taking care of people who were incredibly sick and were really struggling with poverty, and , access to food, and how could they afford their medications.
My struggles have been around protecting our air quality, protecting people from mercury in fish. I was very involved in the effort to get the FDA to recognize that mercury in fish is a real health issue and the FDA, you know, needed to be on that. But they were very tight with the fishing industry and did not want the public to be aware in the same way that they later didn't want the public to be aware of the problems with Vioxx, and they sat on the studies for many years and allowed 140,000 people to develop heart disease.
