American Medical Association

The American Medical Association — the main professional association for physicians in the US, which has increasingly engaged in political advocacy on health equity, gun control, and DEI topics.

Medical institution in culture war: The AMA's significance in this context is its shift from a primarily professional-scientific body to one with explicit political positions on social determinants of health, structural racism in medicine, and health equity — positions that critics argue exceed its medical mandate and represent political capture. Its Advancing Health Equity report (2021) became controversial for its framework treating health disparities as products of structural racism and its approach to language (e.g., treating 'low-income' as a stigmatizing term). It represents a broader pattern of professional scientific bodies adopting social justice frameworks.