Demand Mass General Remove War Criminal, James D. Taiclet, from Board of Directors
Mass General-Brigham Hospital Leaders
Join us in demanding that Mass General Brigham immediately remove James D. Taiclet from its Board of Directors.
Mr. Taiclet is President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and exporter. There is a profound conflict of interest involved in the world’s largest weapons manufacturer sitting on the board of one of the world’s largest and most prestigious healthcare systems.
Mass General Brigham, like most of the U.S. healthcare establishment, is silent regarding the genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza by Israel in partnership with the United States and the West. Historically and today, Lockheed Martin is one of the largest weapons suppliers to Israel. Mass General Brigham’s astounding silence about the genocide in Gaza and the destruction of the healthcare system there, combined with its embrace of James Taiclet on its Board of Directors, make very clear Mass General Brigham’s stance on genocide. Mass General Brigham must stand clearly against genocide and crimes against humanity. Lockheed Martin is a criminal global enterprise profiting from the wreaking of indescribable havoc and aiding in the suffering of humanity and the planet. It should be a global pariah, not have its leaders sitting on hospital boards.
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To:
Mass General-Brigham Hospital Leaders
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[Your Name]
As the genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza enters its fifteenth month, we healthcare workers, healthcare consumers, and allies are SICK FROM GENOCIDE. For more than a year, we have been forced to witness Israel's final solution to the Palestinian "problem," aided, abetted, and in partnership with the U.S. and most Western governments. The British Lancet, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, and other experts estimate that at least 300,000 Palestinians have been murdered in Gaza since mid-October of 2023, nearly 10% of the entire population. The daily toll on children is historic and horrific. Civilian suffering and death in Gaza are not collateral damage. They are systematic, driven by the deliberate, conscious dehumanization of the Palestinian people undertaken by Israel and the West since the horrendous Nakba of 1948 and before. The war on Gaza's healthcare system has been systematic from the earliest hours of the current genocide. Over 1,000 healthcare providers have been targeted and murdered. Over 400 have been kidnapped and detained in torture camps. Hospitals and ambulances have been bombed, sniped, and set on fire. Blockade and starvation have been pursued by the Israeli military as deliberate weapons of annihilation. The escalated Israeli attack on the people and infrastructure of north Gaza is an extermination campaign the likes of which are nearly unprecedented in living memory.
Mass General Brigham (MGB) is a not-for-profit, integrated healthcare system in Massachusetts, engaging in medical research, patient care, and teaching. It is the largest, hospital-based research enterprise in the United States, with annual funding of more than $2 billion. Its 2022 revenue was in excess of $18 billion. With 82,000 staff, it is the largest private employer in the state. The MGB system treats 1.5 million patients annually. Its clinical care system includes seven community hospitals, two academic hospitals, three specialty hospitals, home care services, a health insurance plan, and a network of specialty practices, urgent care facilities, outpatient clinics, and surgical centers.
Mass General Brigham prides itself not just on the services it provides across Massachusetts, but on its national and global role and reputation. It is the top system for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in the world. At least 22 Nobel Laureates are affiliated with MGB institutions. MGB describes its 3,700 ongoing clinical trials as designed "to accelerate bringing new treatments and therapies to our patients and the world." As recently as January 8, 2025, Mass General Brigham held a global conference titled, "In the Heart of Conflict: Médecins Sans Frontière's (MSF's) Work and the Barriers to Aid."
MGB elaborates on its slogan, "Brightest Minds, Together, For You," in declaring, "Our vision is to touch the communities we serve, local or global, with sustainable improvements in the care we provide, and with a keen focus on underserved populations." We are shocked, therefore, that James D. Taiclet, President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Lockheed Martin Corporation, serves on the Board of Directors of Mass General Brigham.
As of 2022, Lockheed Martin is the single largest military contractor in the world. It designs, manufactures, and sells fighter jets, attack helicopters, armored vehicles, missiles, surveillance radars, and other weapons and surveillance systems. Between 2008 and August 2024, Lockheed Martin held contracts worth $459.2 billion with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Lockheed Martin has also played a key role in the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lockheed Martin is one of the largest weapons suppliers to Israel, both in the past and in the current genocide in Gaza. Its technologies are integrated into Israel's main weapon systems, and its weapons are frequently gifted to Israel through the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Financing program. Among the weapons and weapons systems supplied by Lockheed Martin to Israel are:
1. F-16 and F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza
2. C-130 Hercules transport planes, which support the ground invasion of Gaza
3. M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) used to bomb Gaza
4. AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for Israel's U.S.-supplied Apache helicopters, a primary weapon used in aerial attacks on Gaza
5. CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopter (manufactured by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary), used to transport Israeli troops into and out of Gaza
Research by the American Friends Service Committee reveals decades of Lockheed Martin complicity in documented Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.
We, the undersigned, demand that Mass General Brigham end this hypocrisy and complicity in genocide in Gaza and many other parts of the world by immediately removing James Taiclet from its Board of Directors. We are sickened by the capture of MGB and healthcare systems nationally and around the world by profit-driven, corporate, and military interests that are destroying the humanity of Gaza and are raining death on people across the globe.
We say no more to this endless cycle of death. We say that Mass General Brigham, that any healthcare system, should have no part in any endeavor that does not protect and honor life. We are sick from genocide. We demand that Mass General Brigham take a first step on the road to health, sanity, and service to humanity by removing James Taiclet from its Board of Directors, and Lockheed Martin from any connection with it.