WGO
Climate change is an increasingly important topic in the news.
Much has been written about the scientific evidence for the impact of green-house gases on global warming, but in discussion with medical leaders globally, it appears that very little in the way of structured research and education has been published on the impact of climate change on health and disease from the many medical subspecialties that might be effected by climate change.
The World Gastroenterology Organisation has seen this as a very important issue going forward. After creating a Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) to research the evidence, WGO is developing a series of papers outlining the current knowledge about climate change effects on health and plans to share the data by producing educational material including articles, power-point lectures and webcasts.
The first paper has been completed and we are pleased to report that it is being published simultaneously this week by three major gastroenterology journals, Gastroenterology, Gut and the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology (JCG). These three major journals in the field of gastroenterology jointly came together with the WGO CCWG to publish this commentary that highlights the important consequences of the climate crisis on gastrointestinal human health, and the impact of gastroenterology practices globally on the carbon footprint and nonrecyclable waste. The commentary was authored by gastroenterologists from 18 low and high income countries, and provided specific actionable recommendations to gastroenterology societies and practices, endoscopy centers, publishers, academic centers and individuals in order to protect planetary health.
The paper is available on the WGO website and links to the paper in the journals appear below:
Gastroenterology:
https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)03339-4/fulltext
Gut:
http://gut.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/gutjnl-2021-325789?ijkey=WDJercWwihKOa5v&keytype=ref
JCG:
https://journals.lww.com/jcge/Fulltext/2021/11000/Uniting_the_Global_Gastroenterology_Community_to.4.aspx
WGO website:
https://www.worldgastroenterology.org/who-we-are/climate-change-working-group/climate-change-commentary
