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public health
'Prepared to Fight': Sanders Endorses NJ Medicare for All Advocate Dr. Adam Hamawy for Congress
"As a physician he understands firsthand that our current healthcare system is broken, that healthcare is a human right, and that we must pass Medicare for All."
May 04, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders over the weekend endorsed New Jersey surgeon Dr. Adam Hamawy for Congress, citing the Democratic candidate's long record of saving lives in humanitarian disasters from 9/11 to Israel's US-backed destruction of Gaza, as well as his support for Medicare for All and willingness to take on the billionaire class.
“Dr. Adam Hamawy has saved lives with great courage and honor—he did it as a 9/11 first responder, as a combat trauma surgeon in Iraq, as a volunteer in hospitals under bombardment in Gaza, and in emergency rooms in New Jersey," Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media.
"As a physician he understands firsthand that our current healthcare system is broken, that healthcare is a human right, and that we must pass Medicare for All," the senator continued. "Dr. Hamawy is prepared to fight for real campaign finance reform to stop billionaires from buying elections, and will not waste billions of taxpayer dollars on endless and illegal wars."
"Status quo politics is not working," Sanders added. "We need bold leaders like Dr. Hamawy in Congress. I am proud to endorse him and look forward to working with him after he is elected.”
Hamawy said he was "excited" by Sanders' endorsement.
"I am running to fund healthcare, not bombs, to abolish ICE, and to unrig our economy," he said. "In Congress, I'll fight right alongside Bernie to defeat fascism and deliver for working people."
"As a doctor, I am proud to fight alongside him for Medicare for All," Hamawy added. "As a veteran, I am grateful for his advocacy for our community and his leadership in fighting against endless wars. I am deeply honored to have earned his support.“
Hamawy, the son of immigrants from Egypt, is running for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District seat, currently held by retiring Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. He grew up in Old Bridge Township and is a graduate of Rutgers University and what is now Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
The 46-year-old physician joined the United States Army Medical Corps and served during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as a combat trauma surgeon. Hamawy—whose highest rank was lieutenant colonel—became nationally known after saving the life of then-Army helicopter pilot and current US Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004. Duckworth later credited him with preventing her from becoming a triple amputee.
After leaving the Army, Hamawy volunteered in emergency and war zones including after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, during the Syrian Civil War, and the ongoing Gaza genocide—when he joined an international medical mission and performed roughly 120 surgeries, many on children wounded in Israeli attacks.
Hamawy and the other doctors on the team became trapped inside Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Duckworth urged then-US President Joe Biden to secure the doctors' evacuation. According to reporting, Hamawy was one of three US doctors who refused to be evacuated from Gaza until non-American members of his medical team could also leave.
After returning stateside, Hamawy testified about conditions in Gaza, describing catastrophic shortages of medicine and other vital equipment and the high mortality rates among severely wounded civilians.
In addition to Sanders, Hamawy is endorsed by Duckworth, Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and progressive groups including Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, Veterans for Responsible Leadership, Council on American-Islamic Relations Action, and Track AIPAC.
While some pro-Palestine congressional incumbents and candidates including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian American from Illinois, have been defeated amid a torrent of funding from groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, others have won their races in recent elections, including Omar and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), and Analilia Mejia (D-NJ), who was sworn into office last month.
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From 'Clean Eating' to Clean Rules: What Progressives Can Collaborate On With MAHA
The question isn’t whether the two groups share a few habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
May 04, 2026
Eat real food. Buy organic. Filter your water.
Scroll through Instagram and you’ll find no shortage of such advice from the “MAHA girls,”—young women drawn to the Make America Healthy Again movement. If you have been accustomed to MAHA through its most famous champion—Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who helped popularize the slogan—#MAHA girls show a wider and growing allure of MAHA and their messages.
It’s tempting for progressives to either mock them or tune out, especially given their association with the current administration. But that would be a mistake. Not because MAHA has the right solutions—it often doesn’t—but because it names a real problem: Our modern lives are saturated with industrial contaminants from which individual consumer hacks can’t protect us.
As a sociologist who studies food systems, I recognize the mix of anxiety and practicality driving this trend. The MAHA movement’s concerns overlap with long-standing environmental and public health priorities championed by progressives. But the question isn’t whether these groups share a few “clean” habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions.
Consider glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. There has been ongoing debate over its potential consequences. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer. And on April 27, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell. The MAHA movement is watching the case closely and held a protest outside the Supreme Court.
Environmental and public health advocates have warned about these chemicals for decades. On this point, MAHA advocates and progressive environmentalists are aligned: Both want glyphosate out of the food system.
Or take fermented foods. My book, Fermenting for the Future, traces the decline of fermentation practices in industrial societies and the resulting loss of gut microbial diversity. Our guts are often described as the “industrial microbiota”—but thanks to our modern food system, they are becoming a less diverse ecosystem linked to a rise in chronic conditions. That’s because industrial food systems don’t just add questionable additives; they also reshape “traditional” foods that are standardized, pasteurized, or only nominally fermented—optimized for cost and convenience.
Here, too, MAHA supporters often agree. They champion fermented foods such as kimchi and miso and emphasize gut health. These concerns have even entered mainstream policy, as seen in the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which highlighted gut health and fermented foods.
Usually, MAHA’s intellectual roots are traced simply to MAGA (Make America Great Again). But its intellectual roots run deeper: health freedom movements, environmentalism, and women’s health activism—many of which have progressive roots.
But there are key differences and they matter.
First, MAHA discourse is marked by a strong current of purism: the idea that we can purify our bodies, homes, and communities if we shop correctly and avoid the “bad” stuff. Purism often draws a moral boundary between the “pure” and the “impure.” Historically, such thinking can slide from labeling chemicals as “impure” to applying the same labels to people—feeding stigma, exclusion, and conspiracy thinking.
Purism also rests on an illusion. We live in a world saturated with contaminants—from microplastics to forever chemicals—such that we are, in a sense, born “pre-polluted.” To try to shield ourselves individually by careful shopping choices is impossible and creates a sense of false security.
Second, the movement is deeply shaped by healthism—an idea that puts most of the responsibility for health on personal behavior. If you feel unwell, the MAHA approach is to take personal steps: Monitor your glucose, eliminate processed foods, buy organic. Structural factors—regulation, labor conditions, environmental exposure—fade into the background.
This is a paradox. While MAHA advocates sometimes call for tighter regulation of certain substances, their overall mindset often distrusts government and scientists, which limits their willingness for necessary systemic reforms and support for experts.
Healthism also obscures inequality. The capacity to “choose health” is unevenly distributed. A single mother juggling multiple precarious jobs likely lacks both the time to research good supplements and the income to purchase organic foods. Without structural changes in how food is produced, regulated, and distributed, those with fewer resources will continue to bear higher burdens—and then be blamed for their circumstances.
Despite these differences, the underlying overlap to progressive causes offers a window of opportunity. Many of the MAHA girls on Instagram are responding to real personal experiences that speak to larger issues: chronic symptoms without clear diagnoses, medical visits that feel rushed or dismissive. Conditions such as allergies, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, and diabetes have become prevalent, and the fear that today’s generation may fare worse than their parents cannot be waved away as mere hyperbole.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions. If we are serious about making Americans—and the environments we inhabit—healthier, we can’t rely on individual choices alone.
We should meet this moment with “clean rules,” not just clean eating. Tackling bad food requires sustained advocacy for better regulations that foremostly consider the existing and potential harms to the most socioeconomically marginalized, such as farm laborers, fenceline communities, and the poor. And better food governance requires more support for scientists and public agencies that help to build a solid knowledge base for regulations and for them to be fully enforced.
“Clean” also means addressing conflict of interests in appointment of officials, in scientific data gathering, and in the endorsement of “solutions” including commercial products. Those reforms would help everyone—including the people with the least time and money to manage risk on their own.
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Climate Action in Healthcare—No Capes Required
It's time for physicians to step up and join the climate fight. This is not just an environmental issue; it’s a public health issue.
Apr 28, 2026
April 28 is National Superhero Day. It’s a shame that Superman is fictional, because our planet needs saving from its most deadly threat: climate change. Our real heroes will come from science, not planet Krypton.
The threat of climate change is not theoretical, and neither are the health impacts. The Earth was 2.3°F warmer in 2024 than during the 20th-century average, and the 10 warmest recorded years have all taken place between 2015 and 2024. According to the World Health Organization, 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate-driven deaths are rising, from heat illness and malnutrition to vector-borne disease and disasters such as flooding. Thirty-seven percent of heat-related deaths are linked to human-induced warming, a number expected to climb.
Yet at the very moment when the world needs bold climate action, the Trump administration has taken major steps backward. The United States, historically the world's largest emitter, pulled out of the Paris Agreement and failed to show at last year's United Nations Climate Change Conference, sending clear messages to international partners. Federal disinvestment has been staggering: The latest proposed federal budget will cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 52% and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's by 32%. Funding for climate change research has been gutted across major universities. We are not on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, a deadline scientists view as essential for planetary stability. This backslide disproportionately harms low-income communities, contributing to rising climate-related mortality.
Even as the US retreats from its international and domestic commitments to reduce emissions, America still has a league of planet defenders made up of scientists, engineers, and activists. They may not have capes, but their work saves lives.
No one is coming to save us, and while the impacts of climate change may feel distant to some healthcare providers, the rest of us cannot afford to sit this one out.
It's time for physicians to step up and join the fight. This is not just an environmental issue; it’s a public health issue. All the statistics about heatwaves, floods, and disasters aren’t just abstract; they’re at the bedside. We’re seeing the direct impacts of climate change in emergency medicine as it affects both the types of diseases we’re treating and how we deliver care.
As a physician myself, I know asking overworked healthcare providers to do more is, well, a big ask. But research shows that physicians are viewed as credible messengers on climate-related issues. Our voices and expertise matter, not just in clinics and operating rooms, but in our communities. We know that change does not just come in the form of lobbying and big communication campaigns. Often, it can come from everyday conversations. It can look like asking patients how they keep their medications cool during a heatwave or reviewing their asthma action plan in preparation for wildfire season. By leading with curiosity, we can help patients make the connection between their environment and its effect on their health.
It can take the form of a discussion with your colleagues about eco-friendly prescribing, like opting for tablets over liquid formulations or dry powders instead of propellant inhalers. Within our hospitals and clinics, we can make simple changes like adding recycling bins and minimizing the use of single-use disposables. Plastic waste is a huge problem in the medical field, but it’s a scalable problem within our control.
No one is coming to save us, and while the impacts of climate change may feel distant to some healthcare providers, the rest of us cannot afford to sit this one out. Joining the Justice League of climate change advocacy does not mean taking on everything; it means starting with doing something. The planet doesn’t need a superhero; it needs all of us to take a step toward changing our practice.
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