Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

HEALTH CARE
The implications of peak oil for health care is a topic of increasing discussion, not only
among self‐organized community groups, but also among and between mainstream health
care organizations, such as the American Medical Association and Johns Hopkins. 242
Marion County, Indiana has one of the first county health departments to initiate a task
force devoted to examining the implications of peak oil for public health. 243
Observers generally point out that peak oil will affect our current health care system in at
least four ways. Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Howard
Frumkin of the Centers for Disease Control and co‐authors suggest that oil scarcity will
affect health care through effects on: 1) medical supplies and equipment,
2) transportation, 3) energy generation, and 4) food production. 244 Many medications such
as aspirin and antibiotics are made from petroleum derivates, and many medical supplies
(such as bandages, prosthetics, syringes, tubing, etc) contain oil‐derived plastics. Similarly,
the current health care system is highly reliant on oil for transport: ambulances, organ
transport, workers travelling to work, patients travelling to appointments, and the
movement of medical equipment. Lastly, as current food production is so dependent on
petroleum for its production, processing and transport, any reduction in affordable, healthy
food has implications for community health.
While we have worked to address ways to shift our food production away from petroleum
reliance, early on the Task Force agreed that a protracted examination of the implications
of peak oil for local health care was largely beyond the purview of the group. However, the
subject is addressed here in the interest of highlighting the implications of peak oil and
health care on a local level. We hope that local health providers and stakeholders will
examine this more closely.
242 Peak oil has been identified as a topic for mitigation by the Johns Hopkins Public Health Preparedness Programs. In
March 12, 2009, Johns Hopkins hosted a Peak Oil and Health Conference
http://www.jhsph.edu/preparedness/Images/PeakOilFinalAgenda.pdf
243 Mary McKee, A Local Health Department Plans for Peak Oil. Paper presented at: 134th Annual Meeting of the American
Public Health Association; November 6, 2006; Boston, MA. http://peakoilmedicine.com/2006/11/12/how‐local‐health‐
care‐authorities‐can‐prepare‐for‐peak‐oil/
244 Frumkin, Howard; Jeremy Hess; Stephen Vindigni, “Peak Petroleum and Public Health” Journal of the American Medical
Association 298, no 14 (2007): 1688‐1690.
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force 206