In 1984 I helped to found the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, in Toronto Canada. We have worked primarily with indigenous people and the economic developing world to identify and modify unhealthy environments. We have spoken/worked in more than 60 countries, identifying the causes of pollution and ill health and empowering the local people to take some action to protect themselves. These actions may be legal, personal life-style changes, dialogue with the polluting company or agency, moving locations, etc.
One of our most successful projects was to assist the people of Bukit Merah, near Ipoh, Malaysia, to take the Asian Rare Earth Corp. to court for exposing the people to its thorium and lead waste. We worked with the residents of Rongelap Atoll, in the Marchall Islands, in their dispute with the U.S. Congress over evaccuating from their atoll after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had declared it "safe" for habitation. We were able to show that it was not "safe" and the U.S. NRC undertokk further clean-up. We helped the Ojibue People of the North Shore of Lake Huron with health problems stemming from a uranium refinery, and the people of the Philippines to deal with military pollution left whe the U.S. abandoned the Clark Air Force Base and the Subic Naval Base.
I was co-director of the International Medical Commission to Bhopal, India, ten years after the disaster, with the humanitarian mission of demonstrating that the survivors were still suffering the effects of the MIC (methyl-isocyanate) gas poisoning. We intervened against a new hospital and advocated for primary care clinics in the neighborhood of the survivors. I coordinated the Permanent People's Tribunal Hearing on the Environmental, Heath and Human Right effects of Chernobyl held in Vienna in 1996, and also served as a judge on the Permanent People's Tribunal for several Human Rights violation which involved health.
I am the retired President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, currently working on Gulf War Illnesses, the Alberta Tar Sands, and various nuclear problems in Ontario, Cancda.
Our web page is: www.iicph.org