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For Immediate Release More than 100 Prominent Health Leaders Call on Presidential Candidates to Support Landmine Ban More than 100 leading health professionals from across the country, including Deans of Medical Schools, Nobel Laureates in medicine, and a former Surgeon General, today sent a letter to the 2004 Presidential candidates, urging them to support the worldwide ban of antipersonnel landmines. These prominent physicians, nurses, and public health leaders called upon the Presidential candidates to support the Mine Ban Treaty and include landmines among the essential issues addressed in their campaign platforms. (Click here for full letter and list of signatories.) ñMost landmine victims either die or suffer from lost limbs, lost eyesight, or severe infection, and precious few have access to adequate medical care, said former US Surgeon General Dr. Julius Richmond. ñThe presidential candidates must recognize that the US has no business condoning a weapon that cannot tell the difference between child and soldier, and that lies in wait to produce death, terror, and grief.î ñAs health professionals, we are deeply concerned that antipersonnel landmines continue to terrify, threaten, maim, and kill civilian populations during and after times of armed conflict,î said the prominent health leaders in the letter. They go on to point out that rehabilitation, both physical and psychological, is scarce to nonexistent in most mine-affected countries and creates an additional socio-economic burden. The Mine Ban Treaty, which came into force faster than any other modern, multilateral convention, has the support of 150 governments, and every member of NATO except the United States has ratified the accord. Since the early 1990s when the campaign to ban landmines began, casualties from the weapon have reduced considerably Æfrom approximately 26,000 each year to 15,000-20,0000. Millions more continue to suffer from the agricultural, economic, and psychological effects from living in mine-affected communities. The United States Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) maintains that if the US were party to the Mine Ban Treaty, it could use its global influence with countries such as Russia, India, Burma, and Pakistan, which laid hundreds of thousands of antipersonnel mines in recent years. "As we have seen recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, the presence of mines makes post-conflict reconstruction even more difficult, dangerous, and costly. The Mine Ban Treaty is the working cure for this medical and humanitarian problem," said Jordon J. Cohen, MD, President of the Association of American Medical Colleges. "Candidates cannot afford to ignore this issue." Just last month, most of the worldÍs governments came together in Bangkok, Thailand for the 5th Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty to assess progress to date and the work yet to be done regarding the global landmines crisis. Non-signatories such as China and Egypt were present as observer governments during the UN-sponsored meeting. The US did not send any observer delegates. Despite a 1998 Clinton directive supporting conditional US accession to the Mine Ban Treaty by the year 2006, the Bush Administration may move to indefinitely retain this weapon in the US arsenal. As part of a current formal Bush Administration review of US landmine policy, the Defense Department recommended to the President that the US abandon efforts to ban the weapon. The State Department and National Security Council are now reviewing the issue, with a final presidential decision expected soon. After President Bush took office, several senior retired Generals and Admirals called on President Bush to ban antipersonnel landmines, given their humanitarian and military concerns. One hundred twenty-four Members of the House of Representatives Æboth Democrats and RepublicansÆ sent a letter to President Bush urging him to not accept the DOD recommendations and to move towards banning the weapon. In addition to Dr. Richmond and Dr. Cohen, signatories include 100 other prominent health professionals, including Leland Hartwell, PhD, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine and President/Director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle; Edward Miller, MD, Dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Philip A. Pizzo, MD, Dean of Stanford University School of Medicine; Frank Davidoff, MD, Editor Emeritus of the Annals of Internal Medicine; David R. Smith, MD, Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System; Ron Anderson, MD, President and CEO of Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas; Garry Gottlieb, MD, MBA, President of Brigham and WomenÍs Hospital in Boston; Richard E. Grant, MD, President, American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery; Kathy Robinson, RN, President of the Emergency Nurses Association of America, and Catherine de Angelis, MD, MPH, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the American Medical Association. The US Campaign to Ban Landmines is a nation-wide coalition of approximately 500 non-governmental organizations and thousands of individuals. It is a member of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines and is coordinated by Physicians for Human Rights in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.banminesusa.org ###
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Ban Treaty and countries that have ratified it, contact the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines www.icbl.org
US Campaign to Ban Landmines |