San Francisco has opened a new clinic to test some Bayview-Hunters Point residents for health issues caused by exposure to environmental factors, such as airborne pollution and exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Neighborhood residents have long demanded the attention of the city. The Hunters Point Shipyard, a former Naval base and during the 1970s, a dumping site for toxic waste, has been undergoing cleanup for over 30 years.
Bayview residents have a disproportionately high number of asthma rates in addition to cases of lung and breast cancer compared to the rest of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Nine percent of Bayview residents are asthmatic, compared to seven percent citywide. The California Environmental Health Screening Tool lists the neighborhood as one of the most polluted geographic areas in the city.
The opening of the clinic comes after the Department of Public Health in October blasted the Navy for failing to report findings of airborne plutonium at the shipyard at twice the recommended “action level,” the threshold that requires mandatory remediation. The Navy had neglected to tell the city for 11 months. Residents were furious.
It is unclear if the clinic, which could be located at 2403 Keith St. at the Southeast Family Health Center, would test for radiation poisoning. The city did not say what tests or treatment would be provided to residents, but did say the only residents served would be those who receive their primary healthcare at the clinic already. The program is still in its infancy, and will likely be developed over time, said the department.
“Every recommendation is tailored to the patient’s life and circumstances,” the department wrote in a statement after publication. “As part of a pre-opening needs assessment, UCSF physicians surveyed staff and learned that patients had environmental concerns such as air pollution and mold, followed occasionally by concerns related to chemical and radiation exposures.”
The clinic is a partnership between the Department of Public Health, UCSF and the health center.
Open one day a month, on the third Tuesday, the clinic will provide tests and programs to “evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients whose health problems may be caused or worsened by exposures to environmental factors, such as chemicals, pollutants, or physical hazards,” according to a presentation shared by the Department of Public Health.
Dr. Susan Philip, the department’s director of population health, confirmed the clinic plans to the Board of Supervisors in December.
Residents say they have asked for doctors to address health concerns for years.
Arieann Harrison, a member of the Southeast Family Health Center community advisory board and the founder of the Marie Harrison Foundation, an environmental nonprofit named after her late mother, said residents have had to fight “to prove we are sick for decades.”
Harrison’s mother died of lung disease at age 71 in 2019. Arieann Harrison said she has urged the department to address residents’ health concerns for nearly three years.
The industrial neighborhood, though largely populated with residential homes, is heavily impacted by truck traffic and other industrial activities — and as recently as 2006, home to the Hunters Point Power Plant. The fossil-fuel powered plant was operated by PG&E for over 70 years, and according to the Environmental Protection Agency, was the neighborhood’s main source of pollution.
UCSF’s Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic offers a similar clinic that treats work-related environmental health concerns, including chemical exposure, at its Mount Zion Medical Center in lower Pacific Heights.
But that is about six miles away from Bayview. The new clinic will be the first in the city’s southeast.
Harrison said that while she is unsure what treatments will be offered at the clinic, the opening is “a great first step towards getting our needs met.”
“Especially,” she said, for “those of use who fall in the margins.”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Dr. Susan Philip would lead the clinic. She will oversee it as the director of population health, but will not lead it day to day.
Every since 1960, HP has had issues with people’s health issues. In 2001 in HP on Hudson road alone, I knew of one whole building where every woman living there in the building from one end to the other 24 people to be excat. All developed breast cancer. Nine of those women passed away within a year. Three men also passed away of lung Cancer. In the same area. I also knew that HP was a health risk to live in even when the Navy shipyard was there actively. I use to look out of my bedroom windows as a kind at night and see the smoke coming out of the PG&E pipes. It’s strange now, that half the people have expired on the hill of HP and surrounding areas of Bayview HP all gone from Cancer. It’s been overtime for people to be removed and the area needs to be condemned unfit for living. The same thing that was done in Marina County, need to be done here. People are still dying of Cancer, Asthma. I know the history of S.F. and Bayview HP like the back of my hand. Born and raised in S.F. lived in Pacifica Heights, Western Addition, Lakeview, Avenues, Potrero Hill aka Dog Patch, there isn’t any place I have lived in S.F. that is as bad as Bayview HP. It needs to be called the “Hill of Death”
The Opening of the Southeast Family Center Environmental Health Clinic was prompted by six years of groundbreaking environmental public heath research and services offered by the Hunters Point Community Biomonitoring Profram. SFDPH must give credit where credit is due. In December of 2024 I filed a complaint with the Public Health Accredidation Board and Superior Court Civil Grand Jury charging SFDPH will failure to provide PHAB Foundational services including Environmental Public Health, community monitoring and surveillance of the Parcel E-2 landfill and failure to provide emergency and disaster services to a high risk industrialized community at risk of natural disasters, industrial mass casualty incidents and extreme weather events. The Hunters Point Community Toxic Tegistry and environmental health and medical screening clinic was established in 2019 at 5021 3rd Street. SFDPH representatives met with HP Biomonitoring Associates and residents living within a quarter of a mile of the Parcel E-2 landfill in November 2024. Several of whom had filed Federal Tort Claims against the Navy and the City & County of San Francisco. I anticipate the potential for research piracy, intellectual property theft and copyright and trademark violations if SFDPH and Dr. Phillip fail to acknowledge the award winning environmental science research conducted by HP Biomonitoring. We are legally prepared to respond to infringements on our content. I am specifically concerned the Southeast Family center CAB seats two individuals with conflicts of interest in the SFDPH clinic project. They are Raymond Tompkins former President of the BOD of HP Biomonitoring and Kamilla Ealom who coordinates the monthly Greenaction EJ Task Force. Ealom has archived over four years of research, laboratory findings and audio visuals I trustingly presented to the EJ Task Force. Attorney Mark Koo represents HP Biomonitoring as an expert in IP infringements and along with our Trademark Engine Quarterly Monitoring System will follow the operation of the clinical and SFDPH research for violations in IP ownership.