On Oct 4, 2023, the National Academy of Medicine announced its intention to divest its financial holdings from fossil fuels – the most significant health sector response yet to Dr. Dzau’s call to action for health sector decarbonization.

The most revered medical institution in the US is sending an unequivocal message to all health sector institutions: investing in fossil fuels is no longer financially responsible nor ethically defensible, particularly for health sector institutions. We’re calling on you to divest your institutional holdings from fossil fuels; they are no longer acceptable in the health sector.

We, the Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners, Physicians, Residents, Medical and Nursing Students, Patient Care Technicians, Physician Assistants, Radiologists, Anesthesiologists, Respiratory Therapists, and many more healthcare professionals – the highly trained personnel at the institutions who staff your facilities are horrified to learn that our own institutions continue to invest in the industry at the root of such dramatic health dangers and disparities.

The core of our profession is defined by our commitment to protecting our patients and communities: “First, Do No Harm”. We expect no less from you – our institutional executives. Your financial support to the fossil fuel industry via our pension, retirement funds and endowment investments, is a direct contradiction to the fundamental oath of healthcare.

In 2024, investing in fossil fuels is the definitive opposite of “Healthcare Without Harm”, which we cannot accept. We call on you, the executive leadership of the largest, most influential health systems in the US, to divest your institutional holdings from fossil fuels including:

• Announce oil, coal and gas exclusion policies for all future financial investments at your institutions, effective immediately. This includes direct investments and bonds in oil, gas and coal extraction industry corporations
• Establish timelines to phase out existing shares held in oil, coal and gas producers, infrastructure, support services and including public utilities with majority fossil fuel production
• Demand from your asset managers, including Vanguard, TIAA and others, to rapidly establish fossil fuel exclusion policies for the funds they manage for your institution

The call for health sector divestment is growing. You did it with tobacco. It’s time our health sector divest from fossil fuels now. We're signing on to this letter to demand we do better.