HJBR May/Jun 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  MAY / JUN 2021 13 PENICILLIN MADE IN CHINA (ONLY) And so, there was a piece of legislation last year that would have saved the federal tax- payer a hundred billion dollars through the Medicare purchase of drug and would have saved beneficiaries about another a hundred billion dollars in the aggregate. And so, I do think we can adjust saving money for Medi- care without sacrificing that, which patients receive. Editor The chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources and one of his committee colleagues urged President Joe Biden recently to “perma- nently revoke” wetlands permits for the $9.4 billion Formosa Plastics complex pro- posed for St. James Parish, calling it “an affront to environmental justice.” Your press office released a statement saying the authors are trying to “satisfy their conscience.” What do you mean by “sat- isfy their conscience?” Dr. Cassidy So, the chairman of that [com- mittee] is from Arizona. He’s got no clue about the conditions in St. James Parish. He doesn’t realize that the St. James Parish is economically depressed; that this will be an infusion of high paying jobs; that there will be service industry that begins to do more business in St. James Parish because of this; that it has satisfied all the environ- mental permitting from EPA region six and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. All he knows is that, my gosh, some- body tells me they’re building a plastics plant, and it must be bad. It is a totally unin- formed decision. One thing I’ve learned as a doctor is that when somebody gets a better job, their health improves; and there’s statistical evidence showing that as people become more prosperous, a lot of health indicators improve as well. So, all those folks who will be building the plant, all those folks who will be working in the plant, all those who will be serving those who work in the plant, they will be more prosperous. So, it isn’t just that the environmental issues have been addressed by EPA and DEQ, it is also that this additionally addresses economic issues for an area in my state, which is not doing as well as it could. One more thing, it also expands the tax space. Now the schools in that area will have better funding, so the child who attends that school — more likely to get a better educa- tion and more likely to have a better job in the future, which means that her children, his grandchildren, for generations, the benefit will go on. Whenever I read about somebody who lives a thousand miles away describing howmy state should do its busi- ness and consigning the people of Louisi- ana to poverty, because for whatever reason, they don’t like plastics, I’m like, forget about it. I’m for the people of Louisiana, not some guy fromArizona. Editor You also said, “This plant will be built — if not in Louisiana, in a foreign country with worse environmental stan- dards — increasing global greenhouse gas emissions.” Would this plant be allowed to be built in other U.S. states today, or is Louisiana the only option? Dr. Cassidy I’m sure that they could build the same plant in another state, which has access to inexpensive natural gas and to the rapid transit to international markets that the Mississippi river gives somebody build- ing in the St. James Parish. But one thing we have seen is that if the United States or the European Union restrict the ability of a company to build a plant in either of those two places, they tend to migrate to a coun- try like India or to China in particular. China uses coal for 60% of its energy feed stock — not natural gas like we do, but typically coal. Coal has twice as much, roughly speak- ing, greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy than does natural gas. So, if you’re going to say this is bad for the environment, what’s worse for the environment — that you move it to China, and instead of clean-burn- ing natural gas, they’re using coal? They’re going to spew greenhouse gas emissions at a much higher rate in China than they would in the United States. And, because it’s going into the atmosphere and spreads around the world, the world is worse off because of that. So, i f ever we were to have a confl i ct wi th Ch i na , God forb i d, we would not have access to the pen i c i ll i ns that are so essent i al as ant i b i ot i c therapy for a whole var i ety of cond i t i ons. ”