Where are the Doctors?

It’s one of the most frustrating shortages grassroots activists face. Not money. Not lawyers. Doctors willing to say in public what they say in private. We can’t count how many times physicians in the DFW area have reportedly counseled their Midlothian-area patients to move out of close proximity of the three cement plants there, but declined to issue even the mildest warnings to the public at large. We know the same thing must be happening now with the proliferation of gas drilling. A lot of private doubts, but few public condemnations.  According to health professionals themselves, the subject of environmentally-caused disease and illness just doesn’t come up in medical school. Doctors are woefully underprepared to deal with patients that may be harmed by industrial pollution. It doesn’t make any sense, but on any given day there are many citizen activists in DFW that are more authoritative sources on environmental health issues, more current in their knowledge of the field, than the vast majority of the thousands of doctors practicing here. That’s why it’s encouraging to find reports like this one out of Houston that tracks the activism of Dr. Wesley Stafford in Corpus Christi over a local power plant that would burn pet coke – a nasty fuel. More of this please.