Dr. Jill Stein

Jill Ellen Stein (born May 14, 1950) is an American physician, activist, and politician. She was the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election. Stein was the nominee of the Green Party for President of the United States in 2012, and was twice a candidate for Governor of Massachusetts—in 2002 and 2010.

She received 469,501 votes in 2012 (0.36% of the total votes), more than any other female general election candidate. On June 22, 2015, during an appearance on Democracy Now!, Stein formally announced she would seek the Green Party's 2016 presidential nomination.

As a medical doctor, Stein became increasingly concerned about the connection between people's health and the quality of their local environment and decided to turn her focus to activism in 1998 when she began protesting the "Filthy Five" coal plants in Massachusetts. Stein's testimony on the effects of mercury and dioxin contamination from the burning of waste helped preserve the Massachusetts moratorium on new trash incinerator construction in the state and she later testified in the effort to get the Massachusetts fish advisories updated to better protect women and children from mercury contamination. Since 1998, she has served on the Greater Boston board of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Under Stein, the Greater Boston chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility partnered with Boston University's Superfund Research Program as part of BUSRP’s Community Outreach Core and became a key member of the Environmental Health Nursing Education Collaborative. In 2003, Stein co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, a non-profit organization that addressed a variety of issues important to the health and well-being of Massachusetts communities, including health care, local green economies, and grassroots democracy. Stein also founded and served as co-chair of a recycling committee in her hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts, the Lexington Solid Waste Action Team, that was approved by the Board of Selectmen and later featured in the textbook Approaches to Sustainable Development: The Public University in the Regional Economy. In 2008, she helped formulate a successful "Secure Green Future" ballot initiative that called upon legislators to accelerate efforts to move the Massachusetts economy to renewable energy and make development of green jobs a priority. Other organizations Stein has worked with include Clean Water Action, Toxic Action Center, Global Climate Convergence, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Massachusetts Medical Society. She received the "Not in Anyone's Backyard Award" in 1998 and the "Children's Health Hero Award" in 2000 from Clean Water Action, and the "Citizen Award" from Toxic Action Center in 1999 and the "Friend of the Earth Award" from Salem State College in 2004.

As a medical doctor and researcher, Stein has published several respected materials and teaching plans, and has testified before legislative panels as well as local and state governmental bodies. In 2000, she co-authored the scientific report In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development, and in 2009 co-authored the report Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging. These reports have been widely cited and translated into numerous languages. She has also co-authored articles about health in publications such as The Huffington Post. In 2009, Stein developed a teaching plan called "Healthy People, Healthy Planet" that was supported by Boston University and has been presented at other schools and universities.

Stein is also an advocate for campaign finance reform. In 1998, she helped campaign for the Clean Elections Law in Massachusetts. The law was later repealed by a Democratic majority legislature, leading Stein to leave the Democratic party for good and join the Green Party. Stein was one of several activists involved with the Clean Elections Law to file a complaint in the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County in 2002 against William F. Galvin, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, over the state's failure to successfully implement the law. Stein has also served on the board of MassVoters for Fair Elections and has campaigned for implementing instant runoff voting in Massachusetts.

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