Communists in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been organizing in the American Public Health Association (APHA) for over 40 years in order to expose how capitalism and racism decimate health and health care in the U.S., especially for Black and poor workers. We have drawn inspiration from early communists in struggles for public health, exemplified by “red 48er” Rudolph Virchow who in 1848 showed that the deaths in the typhus epidemic in Germany were related to poverty and living conditions and then joined the Revolution of 1848 against the German aristocracy. In that spirit, we have put forward the need for a communist revolution while presenting CHALLENGE, holding annual PLP-led breakfasts or forums, writing and distributing annual analyses of capitalism and health, and participating in many sections and caucuses. Together with our friends, we have led yearly demonstrations inside and outside the conference and successfully put forward resolutions against racism, fascism, and war. Today we fight the Covid-19 epidemic and point out how it has the same root causes as HIV/AIDS (see CHALLENGE, 12/14/22). Highlights of these years of struggle point the way towards building a communist-led mass movement to topple capitalism and ensure better working-class health through communism!

1979 - Protesting closing of New York City hospitals
At the APHA conference in New York City in 1979, the opening session was dramatically interrupted: “Hey Hey, ho ho, Racist Koch has got to go!” rang out as PLP members charged the stage with banners and threw eggs at Mayor Ed Koch who had been invited to open the conference. He had the audacity to welcome public health workers to New York City while closing city hospitals that served Black and Latin communities, who themselves had been fighting back for months. Three comrades including a doctor were arrested but people on the streets cheered us and donated to the Party. Racist closures of city hospitals in NYC and many other underserved areas have continued throughout the years leading to the mass death and overcrowding that was seen during the AIDS epidemic and now with Covid-19. The capitalist policies of cutting back and kicking people out of hospital beds mean record profits for insurers and death for the working class. At APHA, PLP members have frequently presented examples of how rationing in services devalues and kills workers, a concept Friedrich Engels termed “social murder.”

Attacking eugenics then and now
Racist ideology and policies undermine health care and have a long history of academic justification. Since the days of chattel slavery, the U.S. ruling class has labeled Black workers as inferior and Black rebels as diseased. “Drapetomania’’ was the supposed illness that led enslaved Africans to escape from the American South. In the early 20th century, U.S. ruling-class scientists developed the racist pseudoscience of eugenics, on which the Nazis later based their racist mass murders. Again in the  1990s, biological determinism reappeared in the U.S. in the form of the Violence Initiative, which tried to argue that crime comes from abnormalities in the brains of Black boys. Columbia University and the National Institute of Mental Health began doing spinal taps while studying  young Black boys whose  brothers were in jail to prove this false notion. PLP leaped into action and demanded that the APHA call for an end to racist research. The campaigns within and outside the APHA forced a debate on the issue at a major session attended by thousands. A PLP member joined renowned Marxist biologist Richard Lewontin on the panel in not only exposing the so-called science as nonsense but also clarifying capitalism’s need to pretend that social problems are due to the biological defects of its most oppressed members (see CHALLENGE, 8/5/2021). Today’s medical emphasis on mental health needs under the stressors of Covid-19 similarly tries to obscure the capitalist determinants of anxiety, depression, and opioid use. In a worker-led, communist society, the needs of our class would be put first and treating the health of workers would be done in a holistic way.

Stomping out racism and sexism
The “War on Drugs”was an attack on Black workers in the U.S. that took a particularly vicious turn with  the emergence of Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK) that appeared in Washington DC in 2000. It targeted Black women who were substance users. Founded by Barbara Harris and backed by right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, CRACK offered women using drugs $200 if they  chose sterilization or long-acting contraception. Volunteers rode in police cars  to locate women in Black neighborhoods saying, “Don’t let a pregnancy interfere with your drug habit.” CRACK promoted racist eugenics by limiting the reproduction of poor women and contributed to the media’s image of “crack babies” as being hopelessly damaged – another myth weaponized against Black workers. In Washington, DC, PLP participated in a broad coalition of public health activists in reproductive rights, women’s health, anti-racism, and harm reduction. The coalition held forums reaching over 150 people in the city, demanded Metro remove racist CRACK ads from buses (they didn’t), launched a petition campaign, and drove CRACK out of town. At the APHA, PLP members drafted a resolution against CRACK, leading the APHA’s Executive Director to compare CRACK to Hitler on national TV. CRACK retaliated with a lawsuit. The APHA members overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning CRACK and its ideology due to PLP’s work. This legacy of fascist ideology in modern dress was defeated by multiracial unity and  political education with both community members and public health professionals.

NO to racist police violence
Communists in PLP have helped lead many of the struggles on the street against racist police. Demands for justice for the police murders of Tyrone West in Baltimore, Shantel Davis in New York City, Archie Elliot in the DC area, and Alex Flores in Los Angeles have been years-long struggles. Communists in APHA brought this struggle into the public health arena in 2015 and in 2017 by introducing a policy proposal  “Law Enforcement Violence Is a Public Health Issue.” After three years of debate and protests, this  resolution finally passed at the annual meeting despite the opposition of APHA leaders who are pro-capitalist supporters of the bosses’ Democratic Party. The published resolution has helped in the  campaigns against racist police murders and has helped our public health friends understand the role of the capitalist state. Public health workers often work within the criminal legal system and some did not want to hurt their relationships with the police. But now more workers understand through these  struggles of communist workers challenging police terror that capitalism and the police are enemies of  public health and are more willing to speak out.

We have followed this victory with a policy on prison abolition and protests against ICE attacks on immigrants. Keeping up the pressure within public health continues through our work in APHA and other  public health advocacy groups.

Fighting racism vital to workers' health
Communists know that there is only one human race and that racism is used to separate workers from bonding together to destroy capitalism. When we study racism in public health, we see that racist  policies and practices make Black and Latin workers less healthy. For example, lived experiences of racism cause many infant and pregnancy related deaths and more high blood pressure. PLP has contributed to this understanding in work with other antiracist researchers leading to major publications and the widely distributed video “Unnatural Causes” by California Newsreel. Thus we continue to expose the capitalist misuse of genetics to attack Black, Native American, and Latin workers and to argue that our job as medical and public health workers is to build a militant multiracial force. Like Marx and Engels, Progressive Labor Party calls on workers to build a party and fight for a communist revolution. Antiracist class struggle is essential for the health of all. The mass movements against racism in the U.S. improved healthcare services and made kidney dialysis, Medicare, and Medicaid possible for millions of workers of all races. But we must take the struggle all the way to revolution for a society that values the health of the public and not the profits of the ruling class.

These highlights only scratch the surface of decades of communist struggle in this mass organization. Public health comrades also fight around international issues in the APHA, so stay tuned for future  articles on how our collective is addressing imperialism, war and global vaccine justice.