UCSF faculty, staff and students will participate in a symposium to call attention to the damaging health effects of the Iraq war on Wednesday, May 9, 2007.
Led by the Iraq Action Group, a campus organization at UCSF, the event, titled "Iraq War Teach-in: The Health Effects of the Iraq War," is scheduled from 2 to 5:30 p.m. in the Millberry Union Gymnasium, 500 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco. The event is free and open to the public.
"This teach-in is about our responsibility as citizens to learn about what's happening in the world, to make our voices heard and to hold our country to the high ideals that it professes," says David Wofsy, MD, professor of medicine at UCSF and a symposium organizer.
The Iraq Action Group comprises UCSF students, faculty and staff members united in the goal of educating the campus community and the public about the health effects of the Iraq War on Iraqi and American citizens and soldiers.
Co-sponsored by UCSF Global Health Sciences, the UCSF Student Health Professionals for Social Responsibility and the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the event features local, national and international health experts from UCSF and elsewhere.
"This event promises to be one of the most important in the history of UCSF in connecting our work as health professionals with the future of our nation," said Dan Lowenstein, MD, professor of neurology and a member of the Iraq Action Group. "Be prepared for an extraordinary experience."
Speakers and topics, in order of presentation, are:
Keynote Address
* Robert Scheer, columnist and clinical professor, University of Southern
California: "Illusions of Grandeur and Arrogance in the Making of American
Foreign Policy"
Impact on Combatants
* William Schecter, MD, UCSF professor of surgery, San Francisco General
Hospital Medical Center: "Battlefield Injuries in the Iraq War"
* Charles Marmar, MD, UCSF professor of psychiatry, San Francisco Veterans
Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC): "Lessons Learned from Vietnam"
* Karen Seal, MD, assistant adjunct professor of medicine, SFVAMC: "Mental
Health Disorders Among Veterans Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan"
Impact on Iraqi Citizens
* Dahlia Wasfi, MD, Iraqi-American physician: "The New Iraq: A Humanitarian
Disaster"
* Richard Garfield, DrPh, professor of nursing, Columbia University: "Creating
Confusion over Non-Combatant Deaths"
* Jess Ghannam, PhD, UCSF professor of psychiatry: "Trauma and Torture:
A Perspective from Iraq"
* Evan Lyon, MD, resident, Brigham and Women's Hospital, with video by Salam
Ismael, Fallujah surgeon: "Healing Iraq."
Impact on the United States
* Linda Bilmes, MBA, lecturer in public policy, Harvard University: "Long-Term
Consequences for the Health of Our Economy"
The Way Forward
Panel Discussion and Question-and-Answer Session
The death toll of US troops rose to 3,330 in April 2007 after nine soldiers were killed in an attack by two suicide truck bombers at a military outpost in Diyala, north of Baghdad, according to news reports. Official estimates indicate that 25,000 American soldiers have been injured during the war thus far, many with permanent disabilities. But this number does not account for those suffering significant psychological trauma, which may affect at least 25,000 more, according to the Iraq Action Group.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded is, even by conservative estimates, in the hundreds of thousands, according to news reports. Huge segments of the Iraqi population have been displaced or have fled the country, where the war has been wreaking havoc to the economic, social and physical infrastructure of Iraq.
For more information about the event or the Iraq Action Group, call Dan Lowenstein at 415/502-2365.
For more information about the event or the Iraq Action Group, contact
Dan Lowenstein at 415/502-2365 or
David Wofsy.
Related Links:
Iraq Action Group
