Thread by @RheaBoydMD

This quietly dropped in @TheLancet 2 days ago.

Joining voices across medicine and public health, Dr. Nancy Krieger, Dr. @CamaraJones and I lay out the stakes of this election, as we see them.

I’m going to briefly list them here, as a reminder.

thelancet.com/journals/lance…

1. In a departure from takes that decry the lack of leadership in the current administration, we call attention to the dangers of white supremacy, authoritarianism, and nationalism-lethal threats to our democracy, our lives and the viability of the planet. nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

2. We focus on the adverse impact this administration has had on our nation’s health and well-being - an impact illustrated by, and extending far beyond, the deadly toll of the current pandemic.

3. In fact, to capture the broad extent of this administration’s adverse impact on health, particularly the health of folks of color, we created a panel. This panel is just a brief selection of what voters cannot forget. (We cut it down multiple times just to fit it on the page.)

4. While the article does not center solely on the pandemic, we clarify that “Ultimately, unfettered racism, truncated rights, anaemic protections, and the resource inequities these exposures create shorten lives. Anyone who doubts this needs to only consider the past 9 months.”

5. We highlight the current economic immiseration in the US and its causes - “racial capitalism, the profitability of inequality, and the deadly [depravity] of the current administration.”

6. This is perhaps the most important (and my favorite) lines in the piece where we clearly outline the dangerous diversions this administration has concocted to obscure their failures and abuses. “These types of diversions are how Indigenous dispossession becomes ‘Columbus Day’”

7. We highlight the inequality upon which our nation’s “founding fathers” built their attempt at democracy.

8. We end by acknowledging that another world is possible. But to move towards it, we must affirm the self-evident truth:

9/end. Drs. Nancy Krieger and @CamaraJones are true GOATs. They are giants whose scholarship and work has shaped the way I see and experience the world. It was one of the honors of my life to think and write alongside these brilliant, sharp, steady, and truth-telling women. 💛