Founder of 'healthy hospital' effort receives entrepreneur award

HealthLeaders Media News Brief, July 17, 2007

Gary Cohen, executive director of Environmental Health Fund and Health Care Without Harm, was awarded the $50,000 Frank Hatch Award for Enlightened Public Service by the John Merck Fund. Mr. Cohen is the second recipient of the prize that the foundation presents annually to a grantee whose work embodies extraordinary creativity, dedication and foresight. "Gary's work to eliminate toxic chemicals in our society has been an inspiration. His leadership epitomizes what this award is all about - identifying a problem or an opportunity and plunging ahead in uncharted waters to rectify matters," Hatch said in presenting the award.Cohen plans to use the award to advance the work at several of the organizations with which he is associated, including Health Care Without Harm and the Environmental Health Fund. "We are awakening to the reality that it is getting harder to support healthy people on a sick planet. We are also realizing there is no conflict between the environment and the economy--in fact, the economy of the 21st century needs to be a green economy," Cohen said. "Over the next decade, we will need to transition from a petro-chemically based economy to one that is based on green chemistry, sustainable agriculture and global consciousness."