Councilmember Catania is Dangerous to Your Health
David Catania has been the Chair of the Council Committee on Health since 2005. How’s he doing?
· DC has the highest rate of HIV infection in the country, and the highest rate of new HIV infections in the country -- a rate that is 12 times the national average.
· DC has one of the highest cancer mortality rates in the nation. The mortality rate for prostate cancer is higher in DC than anywhere in the country. The District is seventh in the nation for all cancers combined, and ranks as the second highest for breast cancer and third for cervical cancer.
· Catania initially opposed the closing of DC General Hospital, but later flip-flopped and opposed reopening, despite the fact that medical services are neither accessible nor affordable for many of the City's neediest residents -- the poor and medically underserved (uninsured and under-insured) populations. Instead, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the private Greater Southeast Hospital at a time when DC is in a budget crisis.
· Catania supported the privatization of drug treatment services (APRA), cutting access to treatment and eliminating hundreds of jobs.
· Catania gave us the HPV program, without adequate education about risks and benefits of this vaccine for young girls, requiring a opt out rather than an informed opt in.
· Poverty is bad for your health. The gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening in DC, wider than the poverty gap in almost any other major US city, yet David Catania would rather give millionaires a tax break than fund essential services. He has voted to cut the Survival Budget for low income residents year after year, and once again helping to block a very modest tax hike for the wealthiest residents (the Graham Amendment). The single most powerful Preventative Health Program DC could and should implement is Poverty Elimination, starting with Child Poverty!
You Have A Better Choice on November 2
Vote David Schwartzman, DC Council At-Large
