Hurricane Lane has just struck Hawaii bringing record rainfall and devastation to the Island. For people who live along the U.S. Eastern seaboard, near the Gulf of Mexico or anywhere in the Caribbean, being reminded that we are still less than halfway through the 2018 hurricane season must be unsettling, to say the least.
Five reasons not to underestimate Hurricane Florence
As Hurricane Florence approaches the East Coast as a major hurricane, there is also a collective sigh of relief among many that the route of the storm avoided areas like Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico that are still recovering from the 2017 hurricane season. However, Hurricane Florence is still a monster of storm, the likes of which haven’t been seen in the Carolinas and Virginia for decades, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Here are five reasons why Florence, and any major hurricane, should not be underestimated…
The Puerto Rico Death Toll Will Only Get Higher
The latest attempt to get an accurate death toll in Puerto Rico following last year’s Hurricane Maria paints a grim picture: 2,975 “excess” deaths could be attributed to the storm, according to George Washington University researchers. That’s 46 times more than the 64 deaths first reported last fall.
But the counting is far from over, and nobody should be surprised if the death toll in Puerto Rico reaches or exceeds 4,000 by the end of the year.
Recovery after Harvey and Maria
Hurricane Lane has just struck Hawaii bringing record rainfall and devastation to the Island. For people who live along the U.S. Eastern seaboard, near the Gulf of Mexico or anywhere in the Caribbean, being reminded that we are still less than halfway through the 2018 hurricane season must be unsettling, to say the least.
To make matters worse, recovery from last year’s season of storms — which included Hurricanes Harvey Irma and Maria — is sluggish, incomplete and lacking a cohesive vision or timeline for completion.
We're dangerously unprepared for the heat crisis from climate change
Hot enough for you?
Well, if you live in one of the many US cities where official heat emergencies have been declared, or if you live in California, suffering the worst wildfires in the state's history, the answer is obvious. Extreme heat creates terrible conditions. And for many vulnerable individuals those conditions can be -- and often are -- deadly.
Donald Trump’s HHS Secretary Alex Azar Must Resign Now
A unique moral failing has happened under his watch. He must go.
There is no justifying the unrelenting trauma the U.S. government is purposely inflicting on children and parents separated at the southern border as an explicit deterrent to immigration from Central America. It is an unconscionable use of overt cruelty as governmental policy. And many Americans, even ardent Trump supporters I have spoken with, say they find this policy abhorrent.
But compounding the trauma of separation are the conditions for children during the weeks and months of uncertainty that follow it. Children are being subjected to emotional shock treatment at detention centers that the government has set up to warehouse them as they wait for reunification.
Donald Trump’s HHS Secretary Alex Azar Must Resign Now
There is no justifying the unrelenting trauma the U.S. government is purposely inflicting on children and parents separated at the southern border as an explicit deterrent to immigration from Central America. It is an unconscionable use of overt cruelty as governmental policy. And many Americans, even ardent Trump supporters I have spoken with, say they find this policy abhorrent.
If I Saw a Child Mistreated Like ICE Is Doing, I’d Call the Authorities
The bandwagon of child care and health professionals who have characterized the federal government’s forced separation of migrant children from their parents as “child abuse by government” is overflowing. It would indeed be difficult to concoct a more traumatizing experience for already vulnerable infants and children then what these kids have gone through.
The fact is that, as a pediatrician, if I saw a child being subject to the terror these kids are experiencing I would be ethically and legally obliged to contact the authorities. But wait: The authorities are the perpetrators!
Melania Trump and Jeff Sessions need a heart-to-heart
Even assuming the worst, it is hard to imagine that anybody — even in this White House — planned to have Melania Trump’s seemingly heartfelt public statement about cherishing and protecting children utterly neutralized — almost mockingly — by Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ s ice-cold reiteration of protocols for dealing with immigrant families seeking asylum status in the United States.
We still haven’t made things right in Flint
In many ways my trip last month to Flint, Mich. — now the symbolic epicenter of how bad decisions, bad politics and ill-advised money-saving measures can seriously and permanently harm children — was more depressing than the first time I visited that struggling city in 2016.
You’ll recall that in 2014, the state of Michigan, led by Gov. Rick Snyder (R), replaced Flint’s clean, safe water from Detroit’s system with improperly treated water from the Flint River. Lead leached from pipes into the water supply. The state’s irresponsible — in fact, criminally negligent — decision precipitated one of the worst public health crises in recent U.S. history.