From the desk of Dr. Bob Gould— How can we protect the health of our democracy?

AUGUST 20, 2026

Dear Friends,

Our government’s accelerating war on our basic democratic rights has become a major hazard to the health of our patients and communities. While we face deepening existential threats exemplified by new nuclear weapons programs and our out-of-control climate emergency, we have experienced an unrelenting onslaught on our hard-won environmental regulations and protections by an astonishingly corrupt Administration completely beholden to untrammeled corporate greed.

These attacks, following the playbook of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, represent the latest iteration of the dismantling of the New Deal and have caused an unprecedented rise in inequality and commensurate growth in plutocratic power here in the U.S. and around the world.

Our federal government has reduced access to health care, increased health costs, deregulated and cut the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, politicized science and public health institutions, and reduced support for prevention and preparedness around climate or pandemic-engendered emergencies. These acts are causing irreparable harm to our patients and communities.

In addition, the administration has rolled back decades of scientific progress and environmental protections by rejecting climate science, eroding evidence-based policymaking, weakening the public’s ability to submit comments, and disabling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ability to enforce regulations and protect communities from the health harms of industrial pollution. Most notably, they revoked the “endangerment finding” which stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate climate pollution and weakened the federal government’s ability to address climate change.

At times like these, we at San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility recognize that to effectively carry out our mission “to prevent the greatest threats to human survival” we have a crucial role to play in helping to build and expand an inclusive and representative democracy. And that is why SF Bay PSR has added another pillar to our core goals—strengthening and protecting democracy.

While we have long supported such engagement, including encouraging participation in environmental and health regulatory agency public comments, we were less familiar with how to use lawsuits to hold the federal government accountable.

So, I was thrilled when Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward agreed to be the keynote speaker at SF Bay PSR’s annual virtual Gala on Wednesday, September 30, 6:30-8pm.

Democracy Forward has become one of the most important organizations defending our democracy through the courts. Their recent work includes successfully blocking the federal administration’s attempt to unlawfully stifle free speech at the University of California, and they are also successfully challenging a federal policy that threatens student loan access for graduate students in nursing, public health, and other health professions.

We need your trusted health voice and support now more than ever to help strengthen our political, regulatory, and legal systems that are essential to safeguarding public health, and medical and scientific integrity.

This is why I would like to personally invite you to join us on Sept 30, 2026, for an inspiring evening of community and education with Skye Perryman who will speak about Democracy in Crisis and the Courage to Act.