[The Intercept] WENDY ABRAMS HAS used her wealth to help protect the environment and public health. She’s the founder of a public art exhibit meant to raise awareness on climate change, and she serves on the boards of NRDC Action Fund and the Waterkeeper Alliance, and has been on the Environmental Defense Fund’s National Council. She helped found the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago, which trains students to address environmental injustices. Abrams was a major donor to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Rahm Emanuel, and she has railed against the Keystone Pipeline and air-polluting coal plants.Abrams’s wealth comes from Medline, a company her great-grandfather founded in 1910. Today Medline is the largest privately held manufacturer and supplier of medical supplies in the United States, with over $10 billion in sales in 2018. Abrams is a principal shareholder in Medline and formerly served as the company’s director of corporate communications; her brothers and husband are now, respectively, Medline’s CEO, president, and chief operating officer.
But now, in an uncomfortable turn of events, Abrams finds herself on the other side of an environmental crisis ‐ affiliated with the polluter, rather than fighting on behalf of the polluted.