In this news:
What if the most powerful medicine we have isn’t found in a pill or a procedure—but in the soil beneath our feet, the air we breathe, and the trees outside our window?
After decades in medicine—as a heart and lung transplant surgeon, a policymaker, and a healthcare entrepreneur—I’ve come to see something fundamental: the health of our planet and the health of our people are inseparable. Yet we’ve long treated them as two different conversations. That has to change.
Planetary health is human health.
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the climate we live in directly shape our well-being. When these systems are degraded, our health suffers—physically, mentally, and economically. It’s time we reframe climate change and biodiversity loss for what they truly are: not just environmental threats but escalating human health crises.
A Surgeon’s Wake-Up Call
One of the most profound lessons I ever learned didn’t come from a textbook—it came from a fungus in the soil.
Early in my transplant career, lung transplantation was impossible. The medications we used suppressed the immune system but also prevented surgical healing. Then came cyclosporine, derived from a Norwegian fungus found in the dirt. It changed everything. That tiny organism helped unlock one of medicine’s greatest advances. It changed my life, and opened the door to the 50,000 lung transplants performed since.
The takeaway? Nature is not separate from health. Nature is medicine.
That insight has stuck with me ever since. It underlies my conviction. And today, it has never been more urgent.
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