Doctors and patients protest against the medical regulator’s inaction on climate outside the General Medical Council, London, April 18, 2024
DOCTORS linked to the Planetary Health Coalition demonstrated outside the General Medical Council (GMC) today against its failure to address the devastating impact that climate change has on public health.
In a theatrical protest, health workers queued at a “moral injury unit” to present complaints about their difficulties witnessing the effects of the climate emergency.
Protesters placed a giant red whistle outside the regulatory bodies’ offices, urging the organisation to sound the alarm on the impact of environmental destruction, and to integrate these concerns into its ethical standards.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch attends an event in Hagerstown, Maryland on March 11, 2022. (Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
The conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a pair of cases taking direct aim at a critical precedent that, if overturned, would gut federal agencies’ ability to set and enforce regulations—a potentially massive blow to the climate, civil rights, public health, and more.
Central to Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce is the so-called Chevron doctrine, which stems from a 1984 Supreme Court opinion that said judges should defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretation of a law if Congress has not specifically addressed the issue.
The precedent has long been a target of the fossil fuel industry and right-wing groups that are backing the plaintiffs in Loper and Relentless, both of which involve herring fishermen who challenged federal rules requiring them to pay for onboard compliance monitors.
Organizations that have received millions of dollars from the oil-soaked Koch network are supporting the effort to overturn the Chevron doctrine. In Loper, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are “working pro bono and belong to a public-interest law firm, Cause of Action, that discloses no donors and reports having no employees,” The New York Timesreported Tuesday.
“However,” the Times added, “court records show that the lawyers work for Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by [Charles] Koch, the chairman of Koch Industries and a champion of anti-regulatory causes.”
Relentless plaintiffs are represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a right-wing group that has received millions from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
Don’t look away. Huge stakes are at issue here. “If SCOTUS either restricts or overturns the Chevron Doctrine…, it could throw into Q thousands of regulations affecting civil rights, the environment, food safety, airline safety, consumer protection, health care, education, etc.” https://t.co/4I8aiVhTmT
Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement Wednesday that “the special interests who spent big to stack the court may get their way if the Supreme Court weakens the government’s ability to hold industry accountable when they pollute for profit.”
“Everything from the climate to consumer safety could be worse off thanks to this potential decision and the corporate lobbyists who brought us to this point,” Ciccone added.
Earlier this week, Accountable.US urged right-wing Justice Neil Gorsuch—who has criticized the Chevron doctrine—to recuse from Loper, citing his ties to a billionaire oil tycoon who is positioned to benefit from a ruling that scraps the decades-old precedent. Justice Clarence Thomas also faced calls to recuse over his ties to the Koch network.
Neither agreed to step away from the case.
At the start of the Supreme Court’s hearing Wednesday, liberal Justice Elena Kagan expressed concern that gutting Chevron would give judges who lack subject-matter expertise power over policy decisions previously made by agencies staffed with scientists and other experts.
“You think that the court should determine whether a new product is a dietary supplement or a drug, without giving deference to the agency where it is not clear from the text of the statute or from using any traditional methods of statutory interpretation whether in fact the new product is a dietary supplement or a drug?” Kagan asked Roman Martinez, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Relentless. “You want the courts to decide that?”
"You think the court should determine whether a new product is a dietary supplement or a drug?" — Justice Kagan explains how overturning Chevron deference would turn the courts into non-expert policymakers. pic.twitter.com/gTDjNP6QwH
The U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, has recently shown a willingness to curb federal agencies’ power to enforce key laws. In its 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court’s conservative supermajority limited the EPA’s authority to regulate power plants under the 1970 Clean Air Act.
But environmentalists and others warned that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in Loper and Relentless would strike a far more sweeping and devastating blow.
“The consequences of this case will be serious for fishery management, yes,” said Meredith Moore, director of Ocean Conservancy’s fish conservation program. “But it also puts at risk all of the environmental and social programs that keep our air and water clean, our homes and workplaces safe, and ourselves and our children healthy.”
“If the Supreme Court eradicates Chevron deference, it will overturn 40 years of foundational administrative and environmental law that has provided stable public resource management,” Moore added. “It will allow science-based management and agency expertise to be replaced with the inexpert policy and ideological preferences of unelected judges, potentially resulting in dramatically different interpretations of law across the country.”
Tishan Weerasooriya, senior associate of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, echoed those concerns, saying in a statement that “if the MAGA justices of the court overturn another decades-old precedent, it will greatly reduce the ability of scientists and experts at government agencies to defend every Americans’ right to clean water and air, worker protections, healthcare, and more.”
“Billionaires and elite corporations have been gunning to overturn this precedent for years, hoping to increase their profits even further if experts and scientists are no longer setting safety standards,” said Weerasooriya. “If the Roberts court overturns Chevron, it will continue to erode our fundamental freedoms and safety in deference to the wealthy and corporations.”
Healthcare workers at Al-Awda hospital. Photo: Al-Awda
The number of people infected with contagious diseases in Gaza continues to rise. The latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) warns that 180,000 people are currently suffering from respiratory infections. Additionally, the UN’s health agency reports that 55,000 people have lice and scabies, 42,000 are experiencing various forms of skin rashes, and 136,000, half of whom are children under 5 years old, have contracted diarrhea.
While these diseases would not be deadly under conditions with a functioning health system and adequate living conditions, in the current situation, they could be life-threatening. “Unless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population – close to half a million human beings – dying within a year. These would be largely deaths from preventable health causes and the collapse of the health system,” estimated Devi Sridhar, Chair in Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, at the end of 2023.
If a permanent ceasefire does not take immediate effect, though, things are unlikely to change, as reiterated by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. WHO teams, now participating in fairly regular missions on the ground, are sending reports about overcrowding in Gaza’s hospitals and shelters. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, on January 4, only 9 out of 36 hospitals were partially functioning in the Strip, resulting in an average bed occupancy of 351% and 261% occupancy in intensive care units.
Israel’s attacks on healthcare in Palestine are affecting everyone, especially the most vulnerable. Cancer and dialysis patients cannot access the specific care they need, and most have not yet been transferred to hospitals abroad as announced. The Ministry of Health estimates that 5,300 patients need to be transferred abroad for treatment, but until January 5, less than 1,000 were moved. This number includes 571 people injured in the attacks and 401 patients who required distinct forms of care, including cancer patients.
Children and pregnant women are also groups most at risk from the attacks and their consequences. Over 5,000 babies were born in Gaza just last month, all requiring adequate care and nutrition. With mothers and families going hungry, it is evident that some of them are also lacking proper food. Among the newborns are about 130 premature babies dependent on incubators, yet most incubators are located in northern Gaza, which, in terms used by the WHO, has become a medical disaster zone.
In addition to going hungry and sleeping in overcrowded tents, newborns and children are also not getting vaccinated. Recounting the experience of a woman who recently gave birth, Nareman, who was “taken from her tent in a temporary camp by horse-drawn carriage to a hospital to give birth to her daughter, before returning to her makeshift home straight after,” the WHO warned that the health system in Gaza is struggling to ensure standard immunization routines. Nareman’s baby is among those who are yet to receive planned vaccines, and she is staying with her sisters and brothers at the camp, who are reportedly in ill health themselves.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has managed to deliver 600,000 key vaccines into Gaza in the period between December 25-29, 2023, and is planning to deliver some 960,000 more together with WHO and UNICEF. Yet, this is no easy feat as Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) continue to target health infrastructure and health workers. Since the beginning of the attacks on October 7, 326 health workers in Palestine were killed by Israeli attacks, 764 were injured, and 65 were arrested, according to Ministry of Health data.
Many more experienced violence and intimidation by the IOF, including ambulances and partners of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). On January 4, Israeli soldiers attacked a PRCS ambulance. Not long before that, the organization reported attacks targeting the house of Anwar Abu Holi, Director of the Central Gaza Ambulance Center, as well as multiple attacks on the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.
As shelling in the proximity of the hospital began, Al-Amal offered shelter to approximately 14,000 forcibly displaced people. The attacks, said the PRCS, endangered the lives of thousands. “The displaced persons are living in an atmosphere of horror and panic.”
The attacks that have taken place since the beginning of January killed 7 people, including a days-old baby, injured 11 more, and were reported by the PRCS to be ongoing on January 5, without a meaningful indication they would stop anytime soon.
