Tag: Ahimsa Porter Sumchai MD

In the footprints of Dr. Janette Sherman, Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai continues to uncover the deadly poisons left by the US Navy on the killing fields of Bayview Hunters Point.

Environmental justice is inseparable from racial justice, as expertly shared by Ahimsa Porter Sumchai about sometimes deadly impacts disproportionately affecting Black, Brown and other people of color resulting from unregulated energy players and what is necessary to keep people safe – and who is being brought into policy-making to do what is necessary.

Endlessly bombarded by the triple slam of the capitalist corporate installed food desert, poverty and government refusal to take responsibility for the toxic remains of the Hunters Point Navy Shipyard wedded to developer greed and other shenanigans, Bayview Hunters Point community continues to take the steps necessary to claim a healthy environment.

“On Sunday, the 15th of July, about noon, we were at Hunters Point and they put upon us what we now know was the atomic bomb.” – Capt. Charles McVay III, US Navy Commanding Officer, USS Indianapolis (Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center)

“Our power comes from the fact that we create the wealth. Wealth is power; we have the ability to withhold that power.” – Boots Riley, filmmaker and activist, Juneteenth 2020 ILWU shutdown Port of Oakland

Like denying a paternity suit when the baby looks just like you – "Toxic Metals Found in Shipyard Neighbors".

Interstitial lung disease occurs in both COVID-19 infections and in people chronically exposed to air pollution. Little focus has been given to the fact that the disproportionate incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths occurring in densely populated low income communities of color – like San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point 94124 zip code – are contributed to by the co-morbid risk of damage to the same regions of the lung by both toxic air contaminants and the novel coronavirus.

Like a deep tissue abscess, landfill systems will not promote “healing” until they are excavated and removed. All Hunters Point residents and workers screened to date by HP Biomonitoring have chemicals detected in toxic concentrations.