EXCLUSIVE: 26 Medical Societies Have Issued Political Calls to Action on Topics Like Racism, Climate Change

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The majority of American medical societies have released statements infusing political ideology into their missions, according to a new study by medical watchdog Do No Harm.

Out of 28 medical specialty societies, 26 have adopted official positions relating to affirmative action or racism, climate change, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, immigration policy, or conflict between Israel and Hamas, since 2010.

Almost every society included in the study had issued a statement on racism or affirmative action, many of which feature calls to political action which falls outside the scope of health care.

“The politicization of medical societies represents a betrayal of the public’s trust in healthcare,” Do No Harm’s Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb told The Daily Signal. “Dues-paying members of the societies and the public they serve should expect nothing less than institutional neutrality from all specialist groups.”

Do No Harm is a “national association of medical professionals combating the attack on our healthcare system from woke activists,” according to its website.

The American College of Physicians “supports greater transparency, accountability, and adoption of best practices in law enforcement to address the sources of institutional racism and harm and ensure equal treatment under the law of all persons, without regard to race and other personal characteristics.”

The American College of Surgeons released a statement in 2020 saying “police brutality against people of color” is “among the most important missions of the ACS.”

“Structural racism, manifested by deep inequities in housing, employment income, and education, contributes to a greater prevalence of underlying chronic conditions,” the special society for surgeons wrote.

The American Academy of Pediatrics expressed concern that the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action would “exacerbate the existing underrepresentation of certain racial and ethnic groups in medicine.”

The American Society for Clinical Pathology said racism is a “health issue.”

“ASCP seeks to engage people of color and other underrepresented groups in designing, executing, and leading programs to serve all patients and all members of our profession,” the 2020 statement reads, adding that “If we do not speak out against systemic racism and discrimination, we are complicit in perpetuating it.”

On the one year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, the American Psychiatric Association said it had to “examine how racism had entwined itself into our current operations, and how racism was impacting our patients on a daily basis.”

“We began important conversations and took actions to reform our organization and to help our member psychiatrists better serve Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) patients,” the 2021 statement says.

Since 2010, 93% of specialty societies published statements on affirmative action or racism, 57% on climate change, 50% on immigration, 39% on Ukraine, and 18% on the ongoing war in the Middle East.

Climate change registers as the second-most popular issue among the five issues surveyed for this report, with 16 of 28 societies issuing an official statement.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists released guidance in 2022 on how to “reduce carbon footprint from inhaled anesthesia.”

The American College of Physicians in a 2022 statement “affirms the need to achieve environmental justice so that everyone can live, work, learn, and play in a safe, healthy environment.”

Only two societies reviewed in the report have not adopted an official position on the five political issues under consideration. Among the 26 societies that take stances, 23 do so on multiple issues.

The five societies that have taken stances on a single issue do so on racism. Four of those statements were published within weeks of Floyd’s death.

Half of the organizations made a statement about immigration, with all of them issued as critiques of policies prioritized by then-President Donald Trump.

The Endocrine Society released a statement in January 2017 opposing Trump’s executive order barring the people from seven countries—Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen—from entering the U.S.

“The Society strongly opposes efforts that create barriers to the exchange of scientific information,” the statement said. “We will continue to welcome and support scientists and clinicians from around the globe because science, like disease, has no borders.”

Medical organizations should remain neutral on culture war issues, according to the Do No Harm report.  

“Engaging in activism and breaching medicine’s social contract comes at a cost to clinicians,” senior researcher Ian Kingsbury wrote. “When one side violates their end of the bargain, they invite the other side to do the same.”

Making political statements threatens trust in medical professionals, according to Kingsbury.

“Medical organizations risk forfeiting autonomy when they operate outside their expertise,” Kingsbury continued. “Moreover, when organizations take official stances on issues, they tend to chill the speech of individual members who feel differently.”

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