The Godmother of Green Health Care

Nobody breastfed in Charlotte, North Carolina in the late 1970s. That was for women who were too backward or poor to take advantage of the modern miracle of infant formula. So when registered nurse and new mother Charlotte Brody decided to nurse her baby, eyebrows went up.

Brody was undeterred. As someone who had worked with striking coal miners and disabled textile workers, many of whom suffered lung ailments, she considered the wellbeing of her newborn son more important than prevailing local mores. So she steered past the formula aisle, learned how to breastfeed by reading books, and ignored the stares and whispers.

Fast forward to 1994. Brody, now a mother of two, had just resigned as the executive director of the local Planned Parenthood affiliate to join Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs' Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste when the Environmental Protection Agency released a report that would change the course of her life. The study found that medical waste incinerators – used to burn everything from soiled bandages to syringes – were the nation's number one source of dioxin, a deadly carcinogenic byproduct of burning materials containing chlorine.

The thought that Planned Parenthood had been poisoning the air sent Brody reeling.

"We thought the more waste we could incinerate, the safer we were making our patients, because incineration burned up all the hepatitis and HIV bugs," she explains in a clear, careful voice that is both sweetly melodic and utterly resolved. Brody was stunned to learn that the waste was coming back into the hospital clinic as dioxin lodged in the breasts of women "whom we were trying so hard to keep healthy until they were ready to become mothers.

"I was particularly floored because I was very attached and proud of my breastfeeding of my sons," Brody recalls. "And the idea that I downloaded 20 years of toxic chemicals into my firstborn was just shocking and outrageous and deeply depressing."

The irony that the health care industry was a major polluter was not lost on Brody. But as a lifelong activist – she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at the tender age of 16 – she also spied an opening for change.

In the spring of 1996, Citizens Clearinghouse and similar groups began a series of meetings in Bolinas on the grounds of Commonweal, a nonprofit research institute recognized as a leading force in the environmental health movement. That fall, Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) was born. The new coalition had a straightforward mission: make the environment safer for humans by making hospitals safer for humans.

The campaign's starting point? Medical waste.

"Since there were alternatives to incineration, there was a sense that this was a problem we could solve if we just educated people and created an effort to make social change," Brody says. "And we've done it."

By approaching hospitals with information on alternative waste disposal systems just as costly new Clinton-era emissions rules kicked in, HCWH was able to reduce the number of medical incinerators operating nationwide from an estimated 6,000 in 1994 to 100 today.

HCWH has since grown to include more than 400 member organizations in 52 countries. In keeping with an ambitious mission to green the global health care industry, HCWH has launched campaigns to rid hospitals of mercury thermometers and toxics-leaching IV bags. It encourages hospitals to buy ecologically sound medical supplies, cleaners, building materials and organic food – a greening campaign with huge potential impact when you consider that the health care industry accounts for 15 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

Brody's work, too, has evolved. In addition to her role as HCWH's executive director, she is active in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which strives to get harmful substances out of makeup, lotions, deodorants and toothpaste. Most recently, in January, she took over as executive director of Commonweal. The position puts her at the helm of an eclectic organization with focus areas in cancer, health care, environmental health and juvenile justice.