Commonweal Newsletters
November 15, 2002
Dear Commonweal Board Members and Friends:
I hope this letter finds you well. The Fall is beautiful in Bolinas. The days have begun to turn cold. The tall grass is still brown. Morning fog brings welcome moisture to the parched land. Spider webs like patchwork quilts on the hedges gleam with dew at sunrise. The surf has been good recently. Often on my morning walks along the ocean cliffs I see surfers sitting astride their surfboards waiting for good waves. On the way home, I still find blackberries ripe on the bushes.I last wrote to you shortly after September 11. The last year has been one of changes so profound that it is difficult to remember what life was like "before." I have deeply considered what I wanted to say to you about the situation in which we find ourselves. The concerns of Commonweal in these difficult times must be for what the policies of our government mean in our three areas of nonpartisan work. Many of us believe the implications of current government policies for children, for health, and for the environment are as grave as at any time in our lifetimes.
Much of Commonweal's environmental health work has been international for the past decade. We have been engaged in international efforts to strengthen grassroots civil society organizations and international structures that support equity and sustainable environmental practices. Our colleagues, leaders of this historic international civil society movement, are appalled at the direction of American policy. Nothing symbolizes the concerns of these leaders better than the award of the Nobel Peace Prize last month to former President Jimmy Carter, explicitly described by the Chair of the Nobel Awards Committee as a riposte to current U.S. policies. Commonweal joins in recognizing President Carter's contributions to the well-being of children, to public health, to the environment, to democracy, and to world peace. This is an American contribution we can all be grateful for.
108 Commonweal Cancer Help Programs: Healing Work in Troubled Times
The outer world is in turmoil. The work of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program requires that we create an oasis of peace at Commonweal. During the week-long Cancer Help Programs, participants see no television, hear no radio, read no newspapers. We agree to leave politics outside the door. During the weeks of September 16-23 and October 7-17 we held the 107th and 108th Cancer Help Programs of the past seventeen years.
Out of respect for confidentiality, I cannot describe individual experiences in the Cancer Help Program. What I can say, about, for example, the September retreat, is that the eight women who came together from across the country did inner work of such beauty that it took our breath away. On Saturday evening, each woman spoke of what she was taking home. The transformative power of the experience was palpable. The deepest healing work on these retreats is often only partially about the cancer experience. The deepest work is often about healing lives.
What explains the power of the Cancer Help Program? The answer remains mysterious. Since we have developed a Cancer Help Program of equal quality at Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts, in Washington, D.C., now in its sixth year, under the visionary leadership of Founder Barbara Smith Coleman and Executive Director Shanti Norris, we have the experience of two programs to draw on.
Holding the retreats in places of natural beauty and architectural serenity contributes to the power of the Cancer Help Program. The elements of the program -- yoga, meditation, relaxation, massage, support groups, art therapy, expressive writing, healthy food, and exploration of different paths to healing -- are also an essential ingredient, though we know perfectly well that other program elements could work just as well. But whatever the place, whatever the program, perhaps the most important factor in the power of these retreats is the quality of the healing community that comes together during these weeks. That community has two parts to it -- the staff and the participants. It is the healing community that the staff and participants create together that is the essential dimension of the power of these weeks.
On each retreat the community expands to include eight new souls, eight participants with cancer who have come with a deep intention to use the week for healing. And our only goal is to help them find what they have come for. The week works best when the participants are able to transcend differences and to work together for an experience that is healing for all. Difficulties can arise, and when they do we try to work with them in ways that contribute to the experience. When groups are able to work together, and to overcome any difficulties that may arise, this harmony supports a level of individual and collective work that is beautiful beyond description.
Waz Thomas, Coordinator of the Cancer Help Program, adds the following:
"Sharing our experience and knowledge with other health professionals has always been central to the CHP mission. In this way, our program spreads its reach by encouraging the creation of healing initiatives in other communities, near and far. In May of 2002, we offered the Tradecraft of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program Workshop to 16 health and wellness professionals from around the county, England and Switzerland. During this three-day intensive, the participants were guided through the history, philosophy and practice of our work. Lively discussions pursued topics such as: 'How is the concept of "spirit" used in our work?' ' What is the nature and use of ritual?' 'What about burn-out?' 'Where do we find the funding?'
"The next Tradecraft of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program Workshop will be May 15 - 18, 2003. This workshop best serves those individuals with a strong interest in the development of residential healing programs and those who are drawn to a deeper understanding of the Commonweal model. It is not our expectation that all participants will implement week-long retreats but rather that they believe this experience could significantly enhance their service projects." More information is available at
It is fitting to close this description of the cancer work with the recognition that two of the most cherished co-founders of the extended Commonweal community, Carolyn Brown and Barbara Smith Coleman, are both facing recurrence of colon cancer. Carolyn, the co-founder of Commonweal and Director of the Children and Young Adults Program, is recovering from radiation treatment and is doing well. She continues, with the assistance of Colleen Hicks, to help five families each week.
Barbara Smith Coleman, Founder and Chair of the Board of the Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts in Washington, D.C., which offers the Cancer Help Program on the East Coast, is currently at home recovering from treatment. Her spirits are strong and she is radiant in the face of a difficult healing journey. Carolyn and Barbara are the true co-creators of Commonweal and Smith Farm respectively. The organizations that they brought into being reflect the depth of their wisdom, their compassion, and their commitment to the work of healing. Please join us in prayer for their healing
Commonweal Co-Founds Collaborative on Health and the Environment Uniting Patients, Health Professionals, and People Concerned with Environmental Health
On March 21, 2002, Commonweal co-sponsored with the San Francisco Medical Society a gathering of over 100 colleagues who joined in co-founding the new Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE). CHE is a national Partnership of patient organizations, health professional associations, scientists, environmentalists, and other concerned individuals and organizations dedicated to reducing the burden of environmentally related disease through scientific research and through a new commitment to environmental public health -- clean air, clean water, safe foods, and safe communities.
On November 7, CHE held its first New York Conference at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, with strong representation from scientists, health professionals, children's environmental health experts, environmental justice advocates, and patient groups.
This is the first time that such a national Partnership with a primary focus on bringing together scientists, patients, and health professionals has come together in support of environmental health. Individuals and organizations join CHE because they agree with a Consensus Statement that says, essentially, four things that are simple and true:
- There is an epidemic of chronic diseases and other health conditions in this country.
- Much of this epidemic is linked to the environment and is to that extent preventable.
- We need to change the balance of medical research, now focused almost entirely on treatment, so that understanding the causes of this epidemic can lead us to better public policy.
- But we do not need to wait for more research to be done. We know enough to work together in a precautionary framework to reduce our exposure to environmental factors that contribute to this epidemic.
After its first seven months of intensive work, CHE has 300 organizational and individual Partners. Representative Organizational Partners from the patient community include the African American Breast Cancer Group of Santa Cruz, the ALS Association, the Arc (Association of Retarded Citizens) of the United States, Birth Defect Research for Children, Breast Cancer Action, The Breast Cancer Fund, DES Action, the Endometriosis Association, the Learning Disabilities Association, the Lymphoma Foundation of America, the National Brain Tumor Foundation, the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, the Ohio Network for the Chemically Injured, the Parkinson's Association of Minnesota, and the Women's Cancer Resource Center in Berkeley, California.
Health professional Organizational CHE Partners include the American Nurses Association of California, the California Academy of Family Physicians, the California Medical Association, the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations, the San Francisco Medical Society, the Southern California Public Health Association, and Trust for America's Health.
CHE Organizational Partners also include the Children's Environmental Health Network, the Children's Health Environmental Coalition, and the Institute for Children's Environmental Health. Then there several dozen key longtime CHE Partners from Commonweal's work on environmental health, including Californians for Pesticide Reform, California Public Interest Research Group, the Center for Environmental Health, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Environmental Defense, the Environmental Health Fund, the Environmental Working Group, Health Care Without Harm, the Healthy Schools Network, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, the National Environmental Trust, Pesticide Action Network North America, the Science and Environmental Health Network, and many others.
What does joining CHE involve? If you agree with the Consensus Statement, you can sign up on the CHE website
What are CHE Partners doing? CHE's first mission is educational: to disseminate accurate scientific information on the effects of environmental factors on human health, animal health, and ecosystem health. Key to this mission is the CHE Science website,
CHE is chaired by Commonweal Advisory Board Co-Director Dr. Philip R. Lee, former Assistant Secretary of Health and Chancellor Emeritus of the University of California School of Medicine. Dr. Phil Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, one of the most eminent pediatric toxicologists in the country, chairs the Science Advisory Committee. Ted Schettler, M.D., of the Science and Environmental Health Network and Gina Solomon, M.D., of the Natural Resources Defense Council are leading the effort to produce fact sheets on environmental toxicants and other environmental factors contributing to many of the diseases of our time.
As a network, CHE will not speak for its Partners. Rather, CHE provides a table to which Partners can bring shared interests and concerns. Around the CHE table, many different projects are being developed, and coalitions of Partners within CHE are working together in new ways.
As one example, the Breast Cancer Fund is leading an effort to create a breast milk monitoring program in California. One of the saddest facts of our time is that breast milk is perhaps the most toxic human food. The reason is that persistent organic pollutants biomagnify at every level up the food chain. Adult humans are near the top of the food chain, but babies are at the very top. In fact the only known way for mothers to reduce their body burdens of toxics is to get pregnant and breast-feed. Despite this, breast milk remains by far the best food for babies. Most of the damage done by the toxicants is done in utero, and studies show that babies with high toxic exposures in utero still do better when they are breast-fed. Thus breast milk is above all a marker of what babies are being exposed to in utero. At the same time, the downloading of the body-burdens of mothers to their babies while breast-feeding is a matter of real concern. If every woman in California knew what chemicals are in breast milk, it would create powerful pressure to reduce these exposures, as similar monitoring programs have in Scandinavia.
Our vision for CHE is a simple one. We hope CHE will contribute to deeper public understanding of the science on health and the environment. We hope we can develop interest groups within CHE that will take the lead on policy initiatives that support clean air, clean water, safe foods, and reduction of chemical burdens in the bodies of people and animals. We hope CHE Organizational Partners can help their members to understand these issues. We hope the remarkable Individual Partners attracted to CHE will take individual leadership on environmental health in the numerous settings where they are engaged, often in leadership roles.
The team at Commonweal working on CHE includes Steve Heilig of the San Francisco Medical Society, CHE Coordinator Jeanette Meyers, Sharyle Patton, Catherine Porter, Davis Baltz, Francesca Vietor and me. Elise Miller of the Institute for Children's Environmental Health is part of the Commonweal team coordinating the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative from Whidbey Island, Washington. Many other members of the Commonweal community have also signed on as CHE Partners, as have at least fifty Commonweal Friends across the United States. Judy Zimmerman of Sacramento, Connie Mahoney of Sonoma, and scientist Ann Blake are among the other Commonweal volunteers and research associates engaged with CHE.
We welcome every reader of the Commonweal Letter who shares these concerns to join the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, as either an Individual or an Organizational Partner. Please go to the CHE website or let CHE Coordinator Jeanette Meyers know of your interest. I hope to remain very involved personally in the coming years in CHE. I welcome you in joining me and a most remarkable community of Commonweal friends and colleagues.
Nineteen Medical Schools Plan to Offer Rachel Remen's "Healer's Art" Course; ISHI Launches "Finding Meaning in Medicine" Support Website for Physicians
The year 2002 has been a time of bountiful harvest, after a decade of work, for Rachel Naomi Remen's Institute for the Study of Health and Illness. ISHI works with physicians and medical students who seek to nourish, sustain, and deepen their relationship with the heart of medicine. ISHI Program Administrator Robert Ruvsfold, M.D. reports:
"The Healer's Art, ISHI's curriculum for first- and second-year medical students at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, was featured in US News and World Report's Best Graduate Schools 2002 as an example of innovative excellence in medical education.
"The Healer's Art has inspired great interest and enthusiasm among medical educators nationwide. ISHI has developed resource materials to enable interested faculty to replicate the curriculum at their own medical schools. In the winter of 2002, The Healer's Art was successfully launched by the medical school faculty and deans at Yale, Dartmouth and Stanford. It received the same outstanding student evaluations it receives at UCSF.
"To date, forty medical schools are in communication with us and are in various stages of preparation to offer the course. We are presently assisting 65 medical school faculty and deans with their plans to implement the course; 19 medical schools are currently in preparation to teach the course to their students in the winter of 2003.
"Among the schools offering the course in 2003 are: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Florida State University, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Medical College of Wisconsin, Oregon Health Sciences University, Stanford Medical School, University of Texas Medical School at Houston, University of Kentucky, University of Missouri School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin and Yale School of Medicine.
"This past March, Rachel presented The Healer's Art curriculum to the Harvard Medical School deans and faculty and, in April, offered a plenary presentation to an audience of the associate deans of medical schools at the American Association of Medical Colleges, (AAMC) meetings. In May she delivered another plenary presentation to medical school faculty at the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine's annual meeting in San Francisco; in September, Rachel spoke to the AAMC's annual meeting on Spirituality in Medical Education. The response to these talks has allowed us to forge new relationships and identify a cadre of committed faculty and deans who will bring The Healer's Art to their students.
In July we held our second Healer's Art faculty development training for 17 faculty and deans from ten schools. Here are some of the evaluation comments:
I have never been so moved by an experience as I was by the Healer's Art Invitational tradecraft workshop. It was truly a transformative experience I look forward to being part of the team that helps spread your creation through medicine you will change the face of medicine.
Nancy Oriol, M.D.
Associate Dean for Student Affairs
Harvard Medical School
Director, The Healer's Art Course 2003 at Harvard Medical School
I know with a great certainty that the people at this weekend retreat will change medicine and medical education, and with this opportunity to get together and share our experiences we came away 'turbocharged' to do this work in a way we never could have done individually. Thank youfrom myself, my institution, and especially from the students, who hopefully will not have to lose a part of themselves and then struggle to reclaim that part many years after their medical training.
Karen Adams, MD
Assistant Professor, Dept of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Clinical Consultant, Center for Ethics in Health Care
Oregon Health and Sciences University School of Medicine
Director, The Healer's Art Course 2003 OHSU
Dr. Bob, as Bob Ruvsfold is very affectionately known at Commonweal, has also launched a new ISHI website for ISHI's support program for physicians, which is called Finding Meaning in Medicine. This site
Burr Heneman, Architect of California Marine Life Management Act, Helps California Implement Model Sustainable Nearshore Fisheries Management Plan
Commonweal Co-Founder Burr Heneman is more responsible than any other single individual for the fundamental reform of California ocean policies governing fisheries and coastal management. Burr was the architect of the Marine Life Management Act of 1998, which then-Governor Wilson signed into law, the most sweeping reform of California ocean policies in over fifty years. Since then, Burr has been working on implementation of the Act. In doing so, Burr has helped make California into a leader in the emerging global effort to manage fisheries sustainably. It is a truly remarkable success story, as Burr reports:
"The Ocean Policy Program recently celebrated the successful culmination of a three-year project state adoption of a model for progressive fishery management that is already receiving attention outside California.
"We've heard a lot about fisheries in crisis for about 10 years, most recently the near total closure this year of the groundfish fishery off California, Oregon, and Washington the largest federally managed fishery on the west coast. It's the west coast equivalent of the New England groundfish disaster. One difference, however, is that cod in the North Atlantic may recover in several years; overfished west coast rockfish are expected to take at least a century to recover. Barring unforeseen circumstances, that's how long the severe restrictions will last in the federal fishery.
"We undoubtedly will be hearing about more fishery disasters in many parts of the world in the next few years. For some of those fisheries, managers are trying to move toward more sustainable methods, but the die has already been cast. For other fisheries, particularly the world's many unregulated fisheries, short-term perspectives will continue to drive them to commercial extinction: too few fish to be worth pursuing.
"I am optimistic, however, that the record will improve for the several fishery management jurisdictions of the world that are beginning to wrestle with how to manage fisheries sustainably. California, despite the normal resistance to change, is becoming a leader in that movement. The first evidence was the state's adoption of progressive policies in the Marine Life Management Act of 1998 (MLMA). Also, the state is poised this October to become a leader in creating marine protected areas areas where fishing is very limited or not allowed. And last August, the state, in the first concrete application of MLMA policies, adopted a pioneering plan to manage sport and commercial fishing for many fish species that live in nearshore kelp and rock habitats.
"Because this new Nearshore Fishery Management Plan is extraordinary, and since Commonweal's Ocean Policy Program was centrally involved in developing the heart of the plan, let me describe a couple of key features.
"Whenever a fishery is consciously managed, the management regime has to ask two basic questions:
- How many fish can the fishermen be allowed to catch this year (and the year after, and so on)?
- What information do we need to manage sustainably, and how do we get that information?
"In the past 25 years, many fisheries have gotten in trouble as even well-intentioned fishery managers have gotten the answers wrong.
How many fish should the fishermen catch?
"That question implies a few more detailed questions, some of which are surprisingly new to fisheries management. How many fish should the fishermen catch if we know very little about the population and life history characteristics of the fish we are catching? What if we know little about the relationship between the fish we are catching and the biological system they exist in their interactions with the species they eat and the ones that eat them? What if we know little or nothing about how the year-to-year or decade-to-decade changes in the ocean environment affect the populations of the fish we are catching?
"Up to now, most fisheries management has been the equivalent of driving too fast at night with the headlights on low beams. Drivers' routine reaction is to slow down to a safe speed. But applying that sort of precautionary approach being more cautious the less we know is revolutionary in fisheries management. It meets with resistance from fishermen and even some fisheries managers.
"Moreover, the questions above about how the fishery, the ecosystem, and changing ocean conditions interact require adding something to traditional fisheries management that is even more radical than the precautionary approach: an ecosystem perspective. For most of the 20th century, fisheries biologists were in thrall to old-style forest management (which, in turn, was influenced by agronomy). The prevailing view is that we ought to be able to manage fisheries for maximum sustained yield, somewhat like tree farms. Tree farms, like wheat fields, actually work if you don't care about the ecosystems that they replace. Tree farms and wheat fields are reliably productive when a few basic rules are followed.
"Because fish are different from forests and farms, the tree farm approach to fisheries management since the 1950s has been leading us not only to collapsed fish populations but to damaged ecosystems as well. Farmers and foresters replant after harvesting. Fishermen rely on the bounty of the sea to replace what they have caught. When too many fish are caught, or if the ocean becomes less productive for a year or two (or 20-plus years, as happened on our coast after 1976), the remaining fish cannot reproduce themselves and provide a surplus for humans. Moreover, fisheries management somehow ignored the obvious reality that, unlike trees, fish are enmeshed in an intricate web of predator-prey relationships. Removing too many large predators like adult cod, for example, may have allowed a population explosion among species that consume baby cod. That circumstance greatly increases the time it will take the cod population to recover even though fishing has been stopped. Those are the kinds of unanticipated consequences that can result in long-term ecosystem change.
"For some years, progressive fisheries biologists have been saying that management must be reformed by adding precautionary approaches and ecosystem perspectives. There is a growing literature of theory to that effect, but little, that we have been able to find, in the way of practice. California's Nearshore Fishery Management Plan goes further than any management system we know of in integrating precautionary management, different levels of information about the fish species being caught, the effects of the fishery on the ecosystem, and the effects of changing ocean conditions on the fishery.
"My close and congenial collaborator Les Kaufman of Boston University and I took the lead in shaping the new approach for the state's fishery management plan. Les, an eminent marine biologist who suffered through the collapse of the cod fishery where he lives, has shifted his fishery management reform efforts to California where he sees a system that is more open to change. In addition to teaching at BU, Les is now an essential part-time member of the Ocean Policy Program team. He and I were joined by Tom Barnes of the Department of Fish and Game and received encouragement and suggestions from Rod Fujita of Environmental Defense, both of whom have long experience with the thorny issues of fisheries management. Les, Tom, and I eventually asked two highly respected colleagues one an academic, the other a fisheries management practitioner to review our plan. They helped fine-tune it and blessed the final product.
How do we get the information we need to make the best-informed management decisions?
"This is about getting better headlights for our night driving analogy. Two years ago, Les, a former graduate student of his (Jesse Schwartz) and a few other outside advisors convinced Department of Fish and Game staff to rethink the way to get information needed for management. The standard approach would have been for Department staff working on nearshore fish to somehow estimate populations of the fish species included in the management plan. Other staff would be managing disconnected monitoring programs for other nearshore fisheries, such as those for sea urchins, kelp, and abalone.
"Instead of that fragmented approach, the management plan includes a single ecosystem-based program under a coordinated staff, working with Department partners to monitor a suite of economically and ecologically important nearshore species. Another important and new element of the surveys is to provide long-term comparisons between "reference reserves" and areas that are open to fishing. The reserves will eventually approximate a world before fishing the closest we can get to a before-and-after picture of human effects on the nearshore environment. The reserves provide the best means to evaluate fishery management measures outside the reserves, monitor the health of the nearshore system, and determine whether observed changes can be attributed to natural causes or fishing.
"That initial plan has already evolved into the Cooperative Research and Assessment of Nearshore Ecosystems program (CRANE), a collaboration between the Department and various University of California and California State University marine science programs. SCUBA and remote-operated vehicle surveys are starting this fall to test and adjust methods. Jesse Schwartz, the newest member of the Ocean Policy Program team, has moved from Woods Hole to Monterey, where he is helping organize CRANE and conducting research to support it. Paul Siri, former Associate Director of the Bodega Marine Lab and now a member of the Commonweal team, also brings his long experience in building collaborative marine science projects to the CRANE program.
"These developments in marine life policy, management, and science are exciting. The advances are fragile, though. The recent momentum is vulnerable to problems in the economy, state (and federal) budget squeezes, declining foundation resources, and severe ripple effects from the closures in the federally managed fishery.
"California's reforms, though still new and tentative, are already attracting attention as useful models from a wider audience. They will be featured at the California and the World Ocean conference at the end of October in Santa Barbara (I'll be giving a paper on the nearshore fishery management plan).
"One final note: Assemblyman and Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley, author of the Marine Life Management Act of 1998, was named legislator of the year by the California Journal, the authoritative publication covering Sacramento. In the article on Fred, he listed the Marine Life Management Act as his most significant legislative accomplishment. Unfortunately, term limits mean that Fred's outstanding career in the Assembly ends this year. However, he will be staying involved with marine issues and that will be a subject for a future report."
David Arredondo's Juvenile Mental Health Court in San Jose Hailed as Model; His Work Wins Backing from National Juvenile Court Judges Organization
David Arredondo, M.D., is the founder of the SOLOMON Project at Commonweal that provides consulting services for juvenile court judges so that they can make better decisions regarding mentally ill young people who come before their court. With visionary support from Ellen Michelson and the Michelson Foundation. David has played a critical role in creating the nation's first Juvenile Mental Health Court. He reports:
"Consolidating gains and resolving inevitable conflicts in the nation's first juvenile mental health court requires constant attention and effort. I have been facilitating a series of forums and participating in the multi-disciplinary team to address the many issues that arise in the implementation of this non-adversarial approach to meeting the needs of children with mental illness caught up in a very ill-equipped system.
"Dissemination efforts also continue. The juvenile mental health court in Los Angeles is struggling along because prosecutors are having difficulty grasping the concept. I have given presentations and trainings for large numbers of judges in Houston, Dallas, Denver, Galveston, and Boston. Serious interest in the juvenile mental health court concept has been expressed from Anchorage, Boston, Honolulu, Chicago, Portland, and Ventura County."
David's monograph entitled "Child Development, Children's Mental Health and Juvenile Justice: A Foundation for Rational Decision Making" has been accepted by the Stanford Law and Policy Review. This article should be coming out in the winter. He has also been invited to write the chapter on "Innovative Practices" in the upcoming Stanford Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He has also published articles in the Journal for Juvenile Justice and Detention Services and the National Association of Counsel for Children's Law Manual Series.
David has been appointed Co-Chair of the Committee on Mental Health and Legal Issues of the National Council of Family and Juvenile Court Judges. During his plenary in Boston, David conducted a survey of the judges present (from all over the nation). The findings were that 86 percent of judges believed children with mental illness were being shunted into the juvenile justice system, and 83 percent felt that technical assistance from the offices of the NCJFCJ would be helpful. The idea of a virtual Office of Child Development and Mental Health was proposed to the current president of the NCJFCJ, who whole-heartedly backs this proposition. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we can establish this virtual office, giving a solid home base to the work of SOLOMON. This would also provide for consolidation and preservation of progress to date.
David Steinhart Helps Preserve Juvenile Justice Funding Despite Budget Crisis; Foundation Funding Crisis Lessens Support for Juvenile Justice Program
California Juvenile Justice Program Director David Steinhart has been the principal architect of juvenile justice reform legislation in California for several decades. From a policy perspective, David says, the Juvenile Justice Program had a good year. "Our main objective in California for 2002 was to preserve the major revenue streams that support youth crime prevention programs throughout the state. While many good programs fell victim to this year's California budget crunch, our youth crime prevention list did well-- with $116 million for the "Crime Prevention Act" and $123 million for after-school programs for FY 02-03. This result is due in no small part to the linkages forged with law enforcement groups. In 2002, Commonweal also co-sponsored a measure carried by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D- Sacramento), which would help children with orders of private placement move more quickly from juvenile hall confinement to residential treatment. The bill was approved by the legislature and was awaiting the governor's action at the time of this writing.
"From a funding perspective, the Juvenile Justice program will need to re-group in 2003. Major foundation grants supporting the program are due to expire at the end of 2002, and many foundations, suffering investment losses in the weak economy, are reducing their grant commitments." Nevertheless, David believes the Juvenile Justice Program will draw enough funding to continue in 2003, "at least at half-speed," until the overall economy and foundation prospects improve.
Davis Baltz Focuses on Greening Hospital Construction Materials in California and on Implementing the Precautionary Principle in San Francisco
Health Care Without Harm: The Campaign for Environmentally Responsible Health Care, was founded at Commonweal in 1996. It now has a presence in 43 countries with some 370 partner organizations. Commonweal Senior Research Associate Davis Baltz coordinates HCWH's California activities. "There are continuing, tremendous opportunities in California, especially with respect to replacing problematic materials commonly used in health care with safer alternatives," Davis writes. "Mercury, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, and the additive DEHP are priority targeted materials."
A major new area of HCWH's work is the greening of design and construction practices in California health care institutions. Because of statutory seismic retrofit mandates, California hospitals will be undertaking vast construction projects over the coming decade. Health Care Without Harm is focusing attention on the need to use environmentally preferable design, purchasing, and building practices. A statewide forum on this topic will be mounted in June, 2003.
Davis is also deeply engaged in a newly-launched Bay Area initiative on the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle is a critical emerging policy lens that enables communities to make better public health and environmental decisions. Davis is working with Commonweal Senior Research Associate Francesca Vietor and other colleagues on a Precautionary Principle ordinance under development by the City of San Francisco which is attracting intense interest across the country. If passed, the ordinance will serve as an implementation model for others and position San Francisco as a leader in this innovative and important arena.
Finally, Commonweal is making strategic contributions that advance biomonitoring in California. "Biomonitoring" is the measurement of actual human exposure to environmental toxins through blood, urine and breast milk samples. The California Department of Health Services has begun a process to create a biomonitoring plan to expand laboratory support for biomonitoring activities in the state. Under a planning grant from the CDC, the state has formed the California Biomonitoring Planning Project. I serve on the Advisory Committee to the Project. California will submit a proposal to CDC by June 30, 2003, in hopes of receiving funding of $1,000,000 per year for up to five years. The CDC plans to award these grants to 5 states. While the process will be competitive between states, California's size and diversity should reasonably give it a good chance of receiving this funding.
Steve Lerner Chronicles Story of African-American Community in Louisiana That This Year Won Decade-Long Fight for Relocation Away from Chemical Plant
For the past two years, a number of us from Commonweal have been going down to a small town on the Mississippi River just north of New Orleans. The town is called Norco, which stands for New Orleans Refinery Corporation. We went down to Norco to witness and assist the struggle of Concerned Citizens of Norco, an African-American community group, to win the right to move their families away from the fenceline of a Shell Chemical Plant and to relocate where they could breathe the air without feeling sick. For over a decade, they had been engaged in a battle with the second-largest energy company in the world to get a fair price for their homes (whose value had been depressed by their proximity to the chemical plant) so they could afford to buy homes elsewhere.
I became focused on Norco two years ago when I visited Marjorie Richard, then the leader of Concerned Citizens of Norco, in her home directly across the fenceline from the Shell Chemical Plant. I sat with her with her mother, her daughter, and her daughter's asthmatic child. The loudspeaker for the chemical plant blared terse orders that echoed right into Marjorie's living room. The fumes from the plant made me thoroughly lightheaded and queasy within two hours. A small black boy, curious about us, was riding his bicycle back and forth in front of the chain-link fence that separated the plant from Marjorie's front yard.
This was my second visit to Norco. I was with Janet Moses, M.D., a pediatrician from MIT in Boston, and her husband Bob Moses, the legendary civil rights leader. Our guide was Monique Harden, an extraordinary young African-American attorney then with EarthJustice who had made Norco her personal cause. Marjorie took us for a walk down the block. She pointed to an empty lot where, fifteen years ago, a young black boy had been mowing the lawn of an elderly black woman. A spark from his mower ignited a gas leak from the Shell Chemical Plant. The boy was engulfed in a flame that shot back and also engulfed the old woman sitting in her home. Both died from their burns. Shell cannot find its record of the events, but those in the black community of Diamond say that Shell's response was to buy the old woman's lot for a pittance and to send the boy's mother $500. Shell, those in the black community say, never apologized.
That was when Concerned Citizens of Norco came into being. Marjorie Richards was asked to head it. Like so many similar community groups in fenceline communities across the country, CCN was largely the work of the matriarchs of this black community -- decent, law-abiding, church-going women in their fifties or far beyond who are willing to put body and soul on the line against some of the largest corporations in the world. The personal courage that it takes to do this is something beyond the normal experience of most of us. Essentially, you have to decide that you are willing to die for this cause if that is what it takes. And that courage stems in deep part, I believe, from an experience of the presence of God that is nourished in churches like the Greater Good Hope Baptist Church in Norco, where I subsequently attended some of the most beautiful church services I have ever attended in my life.
I could not forget the story of the boy and the elderly woman who burned to death. I formed a determination to support this alliance of Concerned Citizens of Norco and the half-dozen organizations fighting with them for the right of Diamond residents to relocate to a place where they could breathe the air and be safe. It took a tremendous effort over two years.
The end of the story is that last Spring Concerned Citizens of Norco won their decade-long struggle, and reached an historic agreement with Shell that gave all those who wanted to leave fair prices for their houses, while those who wanted to stay received generous home-improvement loans that they can fully write off over a five-year period. Shell, for its part, demonstrated a willingness to listen in seeking to reconcile community and environmental concerns with the very tough business of being an oil, gas, and chemical company.
Commonweal, it is fair to say, played a significant role in this historic environmental justice victory in the American South, working alongside an alliance of local and national environmental organizations including Louisiana Bucket Brigade, EarthJustice, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, the Refinery Reform Project, Greenpeace, the Coming Clean Campaign, the Environmental Health Fund, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network,. and others.
What Commonweal brought to the struggle was interesting. Above all, we brought the power of witness. We brought a remarkable community of Commonweal friends across the country to witness the struggle in Norco. These friends included Pete Myers of the United Nations Foundation, Peter Warshall, Editor of Whole Earth Review, who has a deep concern for social justice and who knew some of the most senior leaders of Royal Dutch Shell; Anne Bartley, then president of the Rockefeller Family Fund; Rachel Bagby, a leading environmentalist and artist; Herbert Bedolfe, Director of the Homeland Foundation; Janet Maughan, Deputy Director of the Environmental Program at Rockefeller Foundation, and others.
From Commonweal, Sharyle Patton, Director of the Health and Environment Program, Steve Lerner, Research Director, Retreat Site Director Jenepher Stowell, and my assistant Michael Rafferty also came to Norco. Michael Rafferty made two remarkable "home-video" mini-documentaries of the experience. Steve Lerner stayed for two week-long visits and interviewed dozens of Norco residents, Shell officials, and other experts. We began to mount all of Steve's interviews on the Commonweal website, where they can be found as The Norco Study Project.
As Commonweal brought this community of concerned friends to witness what was happening in Norco, simultaneously the national Coming Clean campaign held its first annual meeting of organizations concerned with improving the health and community performance of the chemical industry in New Orleans. This community of environmental and environmental justice activists from across the country identified Norco as an historic struggle of key concern, ending its meeting with a visit to Norco and then a picket line in front of Shell headquarters in New Orleans. Subsequently, we helped bring a whole busload of members of the Environmental Grantmakers Association to see Norco. In summary, Norco came to be identified, locally, nationally, and internationally as a community where a struggle that was every bit as important as the civil rights struggle of the 1960s was being played out. But while the civil rights struggle was about the right to vote and to equal treatment under the law, this environmental justice struggle was about the right to live in a place where you could safely breathe the air, drink the water, and touch the earth.
Commonweal brought something else to this struggle, which was a conviction that this struggle could only be won if it was also a win-win outcome for Shell Chemical USA and for its parent company, Royal Dutch Shell. We came to believe that to help create such a victory for both sides, we had to understand the issues from Shell's side as well as from the community's side. The historic danger when one does this is that sometimes organizations that work in the middle ground forsake their commitment to the community they have come to help. We were very clear at Commonweal that we were unwilling to be seen as representing Concerned Citizens of Norco, and that only CCN itself could make a decision on what was a fair outcome.
The bottom line was that we found good people at Shell, and we built relationships of trust that enabled people to begin to talk across the divide of complete mistrust that had made dialogue impossible for many years. We helped people identify the outlines of a win-win outcome that Shell and Concerned Citizens of Norco could both be proud of. Steve Lerner is editing his interviews into a book about our experience in Norco. You can read the interviews right now by clicking here.
On November 9, I was given the annual "Defender of the Environment Award" by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) for our work in Norco. The credit belongs with all those Louisiana allies and Commonweal friends mentioned above.
Commonweal Community Contributions
One of the most remarkable experiences of working at Commonweal is receiving in the mail each week contributions from the extraordinary community of people across the country who consider themselves part of the Commonweal community and who want to support Commonweal's work. Many contributions come from participants in the Cancer Help Program and their friends and families. Some come as memorial contributions. Some friends remember Commonweal in their wills and their estate planning.
We could not do the work we do without your support. We want to express our deep gratitude to each of the following Commonweal supporters:
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This year Commonweal also received support from the following foundations and organizations:
The Jenifer Altman Foundation, The American Cancer Society, The Beldon Fund, The Bothin Foundation, The California Wellness Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Flow Fund, The Homeland Foundation, The Roy A. Hunt Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The W. Alton Jones Foundation, The David L. Klein Foundation, The Jin and Linda Zidell Fund at the Marin Community Foundation, The John Merck Fund, The Mach Foundation, The Michelson Foundation, The New England Aquarium Pew Fellows Program, The New York Community Trust, The Open Society Institute, The David and Lucille Packard Foundation, The PantaRhea Foundation, The George and Ann Hogle Fund of the Peninsula Community Foundation, The Seven Springs Foundation, The Tides Foundation, and Whitehall Management.
All of us at Commonweal are deeply grateful for all the support we received this past year both from individuals and foundations who believe in our work. In the very difficult economic times in which we are living, our work is more dependent than it has been in years on your generosity and your support. We hope you will consider a contribution to Commonweal this year. A self-addressed envelope is enclosed.
Thanks for your interest in Commonweal.
With warm best wishes,
Michael Lerner President