The American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Public Health Association (APHA) yesterday held a conference call to explain how global warming has “taken a toll on human health and will continue to cause food-borne illnesses, respiratory problems, and deaths unless policy changes are enacted.”

According to a report on the call,  “The ‘evidence has only grown stronger’ that climate change is responsible for an increasing number of health ills, including asthma, diarrheal disease, and even deaths from extreme weather such as heat waves, said Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the APHA.

Perry Sheffield, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine noted that “Salmonella outbreaks also increase when temperatures are very warm.”