NEWS: Standing Together for Justice and Health for All

MARCH 20, 2025

Dear Friends,

We have all been grappling with how best to respond to the Trump administration’s warp-speed evisceration of programs that protect our health, climate, security, democracy, and planetary survival. The administration has already enacted policies that are overtly cruel and authoritarian, and intentionally target our most vulnerable and disenfranchised communities.

As compiled by our National PSR office, here is a list of threats to health that have already been enacted, including but not limited to:

• Attacks on federal employees, agencies, and programs that protect public health, preserve our national parks and forests, monitor extreme weather, safeguard nuclear security, enforce environmental protections, and provide care to the most vulnerable across the globe.
• Attacks on science and facts—defunding critical medical research, deleting public health and climate data, and undermining the freedom of the press through intimidation and misinformation.
• Attacks on the rights and the dignity of historically disenfranchised communities, stoking hatred and division by targeting immigrants, asylum seekers, transgender Americans, and others.
• Attacks on Medicaid and SNAP programs, harming the poorest Americans to give tax cuts to businesses and billionaires.
• Attacks on global peace and diplomatic stability, increasing the threat of nuclear annihilation, with constant warnings of impending WWIII.
• Attacks on the health of our democracy itself, as the President and the world’s richest man recklessly defy the checks and balances of Congress and the Courts.

For more than four decades, SF Bay PSR has been standing up for community and planetary health and advocating for peace, environmental, racial and social justice. Democracy is a prerequisite to achieving our mission. We cannot and will not be silent now.

We invite you to join us in opposing the Trump Administration’s attacks on health. Together we will find the courage, knowledge, and capacity to respond, and together we can channel our outrage into productive action.

As a recent editorial in the Lancet  summarized, the current situation is a test, and the health community has overcome substantive obstacles in support of humanity’s well-being in the past. The editorial reinforces the values of our community, “[T]hat everyone has a right to health. That health of Americans is contingent on the health of everyone, everywhere-and vice versa.”

So we must stand together and for each other as never before.
To this end, join us!

• Watch out for our Action and Events emails that make it easy for you to sign-on to letters, attend educational events, and join our efforts to amplify our trusted health voices via op-eds, public forums, and in the media.
• Exert pressure on our federal representatives. Send letters, emails, and make WEEKLY calls. Visit them at their offices.
• Protest. Attend rallies, marches, and other public protest events. See the photo above!
• Advocate at the state level for stronger health- and science-based policies in California—we can still lead on electrification of our buildings and transportation to reduce air pollution and improve the health of communities and the climate. We can show the rest of the country how environmental health and justice can make our communities stronger and healthier.
• Join us and our colleagues in the California Medical Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, National Nurses United, and other health professionals who are fighting to save Medicaid, and let’s advocate for universal healthcare!
• Support our local governments and agencies as they face attacks from the new federal administration and join us to advocate for creative funding options to continue climate, health, and equity programs as we continue to fight crippling budget cuts.
• Serve our environmental justice, community-based organizations by supporting policies to protect them from toxic and radioactive pollution, especially as the EPA is demolished.
• Redouble our support for our emerging health professionals via mentorship, internships, and ways to be involved in direct policy advocacy and action.

Recognize that an attack on one is an attack on all. For example, speak up for trans people, immigrants (see PHR’s guide for providers), and all other vulnerable groups who have been specifically targeted for harm.

What else can you do?

• Build community with other health professionals and allies: Join one of our committees to find community and action. Talk with your colleagues who are looking for community and opportunities for action. Forward this email and introduce them to SF Bay PSR.
• Share your story: You have tremendous influence as a health professional. Now is the time to share your story on social media, write an op-ed, attend a town hall meeting, or just talk with friends and neighbors.
• Take care of yourself: Change will not be quick or easy, so we must sustain ourselves for the long haul. Take breaks from breaking news. Spend time outside and with community.

And of course!

• Support SF Bay PSR! PLEASE GIVE HERE! Your donations help fund our amazing staff who equip you with the resources to make a difference and our Emerging Health Professionals programs for students and young professionals.

Trump’s policies and attacks are far more than disruptive—they are causing suffering and death and destroying our democracy. The greatest threat to our health, security, and our country may be the new administration’s intentional use of propaganda, misinformation, and threats to silence us—but we will not be quiet in the face of this vicious onslaught on our fundamental rights and basic survival.

We welcome you to join our community of health professionals, scientists, researchers, advocates, community members, board, staff, and consultants—together we can and will grow stronger and more powerful.

In peace and solidarity,

Robert M. Gould
President, SF Bay PSR