{"id":15831,"date":"2016-08-10T00:35:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T00:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2016\/08\/09\/genius-grant-recognizes-alumnus-environmental-work-in-health-care\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:30:10","slug":"genius-grant-recognizes-alums-environmental-work-in-health-care","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2016\/08\/09\/genius-grant-recognizes-alums-environmental-work-in-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Genius grant\u2019 recognizes alumnus\u2019 environmental work in health care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

To save the planet, Gary Cohen \u201978 advocates for Health Care Without Harm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary Cohen \u201978 is a genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what the MacArthur Foundation<\/a> insists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Cohen was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship<\/a> and its accompanying monetary prize \u2014 commonly known as a \u201cgenius grant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have a lot of trouble with this genius thing,\u201d he admits. \u201cI\u2019m not a genius. I had a good idea and I\u2019ve worked hard, and it\u2019s taken off, so that\u2019s fantastic. There are a lot of good people doing good things and I\u2019m really fortunate to have been singled out for my work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cover
Story from Clark magazine, spring 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cohen\u2019s good idea was to help hospitals and health care facilities become more environmentally responsible. In the 1990s, according to the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>, medical waste incinerators were the largest source of dioxin emissions in the country, and a significant source of mercury pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was crazy,\u201d Cohen says. \u201cHow could the health care sector, which is committed and devoted to healing, itself be poisoning the very communities it serves?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His efforts were the genesis of Health Care Without Harm <\/a>(HCWH), now a global organization that develops strategies for hospitals and health systems to address their environmental footprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe worked with Beth Israel-Deaconess<\/a> Hospital in Boston to show how they could eliminate mercury thermometers, and that gave other hospitals in Boston the sense of how they could do it, too. We got all the hospitals in the city to eliminate mercury, and then we took that on the road,\u201d Cohen says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His travels took him across the United States, and then around the world, where he convinced health care providers that they could measure temperature and blood pressure without mercury. Ultimately, his work led to the Minamata Convention on Mercury<\/a> and a treaty, signed by more than 140 nations, phasing out all mercury-containing measuring devices by the year 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we started all of this, the conversation was, \u2018We\u2019ve got all of this toxic waste, where should we put it?\u2019 which was the wrong question to ask,\u201d Cohen says. \u201cNow, it\u2019s shifted to, \u2018How can we completely transform our economy so it\u2019s based on principles of sustainability, green chemistry and renewable energy that actually will be good for the economy and also good for people\u2019s health?\u2019 It\u2019s not a trade-off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HCWH strategies help hospitals and health care systems become more energy-efficient and invest in renewable energy, eliminate toxic chemicals from their facilities to improve safety for their patients and employees, transform their food-purchasing practices to serve healthy, sustainably grown food and purchase more environmentally responsible products to move the market toward greater sustainability. A global network lets hospitals around the world learn from each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cohen had an appreciation for the power of positive disruption even during his Clark days, as a philosophy major. At his commencement ceremony, without permission, he went onto the stage and gave a speech. He carried with him a trophy, representing the achievements of his fellow graduates, which was engraved with a guiding principle: \u201cEducation is what you have left over after you\u2019ve forgotten everything you\u2019ve learned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe concept,\u201d he explains, \u201cwas that a really good college education will teach you how to think and how to be analytical. You won\u2019t remember specific content or dates, but you\u2019ll remember how to analyze a problem. That\u2019s what was so valuable about the Clark education.\u201d (The trophy was ceremoniously deposited at Moynihan\u2019s Pub, where it remains to this day.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following graduation, Cohen connected with classmate and good friend John O\u2019Connor \u201978, who had started the National Toxics Campaign<\/a>. The two Clarkies traveled throughout the country and met with families living near Superfund sites, incinerators and factories, \u201cmostly mothers and fathers sitting around kitchen tables,\u201d Cohen says, \u201cwondering why their kid had a rare form of cancer, why another child is waking up choking at night, why the water tastes bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cohen worked alongside O\u2019Connor for about a decade, providing technical and organizing assistance to people around the country. They wrote a guidebook, \u201cFighting Toxics<\/a>,\u201d that is still available online. (Amazon offers it as an e-book.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve found over the last thirty years is that people all over the world are fighting this same struggle, defending their communities against pollution. There\u2019s a global movement of people who are trying to save the planet, their communities, and their health,\u201d Cohen says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge for the health care industry is to become a leader on climate change, he says. The most powerful way to motivate people to act is to talk about things that matter to them, \u201cwhich is their health, and the health of their families,\u201d Cohen says. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re at an early stage of starting to build the narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat will keep us busy for the next 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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