April 7, 2021
by Dr. Vi Thuy Nguyen
At SDPCA we are still processing and reflecting on this wonderful moment that happened last week for our collective children and our collective planet. One of our own, Dr. Anne Marie Birkbeck-Garcia was appointed as the Public Health Member for the Air Pollution Control District Board. As we are a coalition of concerned pediatricians and also a network of friends that collectively take care of more than a hundred thousdand children across San Diego, we know the interconnectness of community and health and the environment. ABG, as she is known to all of us, is our contribution to what we hope will be cascading effects of healing and health in our community.
Our partners at the Environmental Health Coalition put out a press release announcing Dr. Anne Marie Birkbeck-Garcia’s appointment.
“Environmental Health Coalition congratulates the three public members appointed to the newly reformed San Diego Air Pollution Control District Governing Board. The three new members appointed by the Board are Anne Marie Birkbeck-Garcia, MD to the Public Health/Physician Member seat, Enrique Medina to the Air Pollution Science/Technology Member seat, and Georgette Gomez to the Environmental Justice Member seat – the very first in the state.
With these three public members, the SDAPCD Board is now comprised of 11 members tasked with improving San Diego County’s air quality to protect the health of its over 3 million residents who breathe some of the most polluted air in California and the nation. In San Diego, nearly 10% of children across the region have asthma, and children in the areas most impacted by air pollution have three to five times more than the county average in hospitalizations.”
https://www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/media-center/press-releases
We also congratulate our friend and fellow pediatrician Dr. Anne Marie Birkbeck-Garcia, as well as Enrique Medina to the Air Pollution Science/Technology Member seat, and Georgette Gomez to the Environmental Justice Member seat. SDPCA and our network on physicians that spreads throughout San Diego will be here to assist in anyway that we are needed.
We helped to support these efforts in three simple ways. We wrote a group letter led by Dr. Sabrina Perrino that was co-signed by pediatricians in our group and in addition other concerned physicians in San Diego with almost 40 signatures. I personally wrote a letter in support of Dr. Anne Marie Birkbeck-Garcia and simply was present at the APCD Board meeting to give brief comments. We wanted to share with the public bits and pieces of both letters, to show you the strength of our support for this wonderful member of our group. We also wanted to thank our partners at the Environemntal Health Coalition and Sandy Naranjo, Port Commissioner for helping our growing network of friends and colleagues figure out how to be helpful in making San Diego a healthier place in which all of us, especially children of EJ communities, live and thrive.
“Anne Marie Birkbeck-Garcia MD is the real deal. She is smart and talented, and a phenomenal pediatrician. Someone like Anne-Marie who has practiced as well as she has practiced, and as widely – has left an entire community healthier through the force of her character and the body of her clinical work. She also tackled the most complicated patients, and indeed if they only spoke Spanish and were medically complicated, she embraced them and made them healthier. My early years working beside Anne Marie, she made me a better pediatrician. I hope that I helped her on her journey, but I know that she helped me on mine.
She is one of those givers, that gives to whatever group she is a part of. She makes you a better person, and she will make the APCD a better board. Her credentials are stellar, but they only begin to describe what the worth of the person is. Anne-Marie is known throughout Kaiser as ABG, and throughout the hospital, pediatric department and Kaiser – she is known as a smart-cookie who gets things done. Looking over the qualifications of what the Public Health Board Member will be responsible for, I am reminded that Anne-Marie is uniquely qualified as someone who has done clinic-based research on pediatric asthma patients and Chair of our Bioethics Committee.
You can trust Anne-Marie with our region’s children. She will bring a balanced approach and bring the full power of her qualifications, community, and professional network to this position. I hope you will realize what an amazing opportunity that APCD has in having a candidate like ABG. Dr. Anne-Marie Birkbeck-Garcia cares about San Diego. As pediatricians, we realize how greatly the respiratory health of children will be affected by decisions APCD will make and we are now trying to be present and available to help. I hope you take ABG up on her offer to help. Because in the end, that is what she and indeed many of us just want to do. We want to help, and San Diego certainly needs more helpful people.”
And with that, SDPCA celebrates this moment when we came together to do something good. And we move on to the next task and find out where we as a coalition can help this amazing place we all call home, San Diego California, to a healthier future for our children. Here’s to CLEAN AIR for all of us!!!
