Network Director

A Supreme Court draft opinion leaked on May 2nd, 2022 indicated at least five Justices have voted to repeal the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and its subsequent 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision. The official vote will not be finalized until the end of June or early July, but it is crucial to recognize that overturning Roe would remove its 49-year-old protection of the right to receive an abortion. If this document is reflective of the Court’s coming decision and Roe is indeed overturned, maternal mortality rates will increase. Additionally, this may threaten the decisions made for other landmark cases and ultimately jeopardize access to birth control and other medical services. 

National APAMSA unequivocally denounces this egregious obstruction to safe and effective healthcare. Whether an individual has access to abortion and birth control should not depend upon where they happen to live. We believe that such services must be made universally available and defended as an unambiguous right at the federal level.

APAMSA recognizes, especially in regards to abortion, that we do not speak for the views of all of our members, let alone the views of all AANHPI medical students, healthcare professionals, or community members. However, as a healthcare organization committed to core values of patients’ autonomy and their rights to healthcare access and quality, especially within the AANHPI communities, we are obligated to speak out in defense of those values. 

Joining other healthcare organizations, we urge the Supreme Court Justices to reconsider their votes to prevent the immeasurable harm such a momentous decision would cause.

General Inquiries:
Daniel Pham
National Vice President of Advocacy
Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association
advocacy@apamsa.org

WASHINGTON – The House’s Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bipartisan South Asian Heart Health Awareness and Research Act (“the Act”) on May 18th, 2022. APAMSA commends the progression of this important legislation. 

The Act, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), would create grants annually within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for actionable public health interventions ranging awareness initiatives, educational materials, and research catalogs targeted at the South Asian community. 

Additionally, the Act would authorize the National Institutes of Health to conduct or support heart health research among the South Asian population and establish a clearinghouse and web portal of information on heart health.

Cardiovascular disease is widely known to be the leading cause of death in the United States, yet this issue is even more pressing among South Asian Americans. South Asians around the world (people from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) bear a higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) and a higher mortality rate from ischemic heart disease than other populations. 

Importantly, Asian Americans have a lower ASCVD risk than other populations but only by disaggregating the data can it elucidate that the South Asian American population has a heightened risk of ASCVD. The increased prevalence of risk factors such as diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension in these communities is what drives this increased ASCVD burden in this population. The Act would provide grants for disaggregated research on ASCVD and related diseases for the South Asian American population.

APAMSA recognizes the importance of data disaggregation to further understand the unique challenges and public health burdens in our underserved communities, and this bill is a significant step in furthering that vision.

In the latest of a harrowing string of attacks, a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, California fell victim to a shooting on May 15th, 2022. Just the day before, Buffalo, New York suffered its own tragedy as a man shot and killed ten Black Americans at a grocery store, in what is currently being investigated as a hate crime. A few days prior to that, a shooting in the Koreatown of Dallas, Texas left three women wounded and is also being investigated as a hate crime.

We lament the fact that these horrifying events are but the latest of a recent string of violent acts, both against Asian Americans and otherwise. It is with heavy hearts that we find ourselves restating our opposition to gun violence so frequently. Yet we also take this opportunity to honor Dr. John Cheng, the 52-year-old AANHPI physician who had charged at the Laguna Woods shooter and, by his sacrifice, ensured that no one else died that day. He has demonstrated immense heroism and selflessness not only in the face of this crisis, but also throughout his faithful service to his community as a sports medicine doctor. We grieve for his wife and two children, just as we grieve for all of the families who lost loved ones over the preceding weeks.

Once more, National APAMSA offers its support to the local chapters and members of New York, California, and Texas during these frightening times, and we encourage you to reach out with any specific ways we can be of service.

On April 7th, 2022, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the US Supreme Court as the first Black woman, the second woman of color, and the third Black Justice in its 232-year history. APAMSA celebrates this monumental moment as the next step in building an increasingly inclusive society with greater representation of people of color in positions of power. 

Supreme Court Justice Jackson is one of many stepping stones for all minority communities. This is especially true when the issues important to communities of color, including that of AANHPI communities, are being decided. In particular, we renew our call for increased representation in the positions of prominence within medicine and academia. The diversity of our doctors must continue to grow for the sake of our minority communities, and our leadership is even more wanting for proper representation. We find hope in the current progress and are eager to see the path continue toward a more inclusive, just, and equitable society.