Fund Toxic Screenings In Hunters Point

My name is Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, MD. People call me Dr. Ahimsa. I grew up in Southeast San Francisco and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1970. I represented San Francisco at the White House Conference on Youth that year. I lived in the Potrero Hill and Sunnydale Housing Projects. My Dad was a career longshoreman who owned a home on Thomas Street before he became very sick and lost weight and on the morning of February 19, 1992 I discovered him dead. His chest x-ray had signs of a lung disease called asbestosis that is known to be caused by working at shipyards.

Since 2010 I have been working with other scientists and environmental activists on establishing a biomonitoring program in the community that can detect dangerous chemicals in the body of residents and workers and help direct them to the care they need and the social and legal services they require. In January 2019, the Hunters Point Community Biomonitoring Program was launched and in 2022 the Hunters Point Community Toxic Registry was established.

HP Biomonitoring is receiving media acclaim and prestigious awards for its ground breaking work that promises to advance environmental public health and promote citizen science in environmental justice overburdened communities throughout America.

We need your help. The cost of a urine screening that can detect 35 toxins as well as important nutritional elements that are often deficient in Hunters Point residents is $129. Some insurance companies pay all or part of the cost. The residents who need to be screened the most live in very low-income housing on the Hunters Point hilltop and along the southern shoreline of Candlestick Point and Yosemite Slough. This region has three Federal and one State Superfund sites next to 23,000 people. Can you donate to cover screenings for a young person at risk of exposure to lead, radiation and cancer-causing chemicals? Can you donate to cover the cost of 10 screenings?