Earlier this year, members of Congress voiced their frustration during a recent House Oversight Committee hearing, blasting the subway system of our nation’s capital for an event deemed “entirely predictable” and a major sign of “weakness.” What were they referring to? On Jan. 12, smoke filled the DC Metro tracks, stranding passengers, sending dozens to the hospital and killing Carol Glover, a 61-year-old mother and grandmother. DC Metro’s biggest disaster since a 2009 collision that left nine dead, revelations about the minute-by-minute handling of the incident by first responders have raised serious questions about DC’s ability to respond to an even greater, more catastrophic event.
Ebola highlights public health crisis
The death of Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, who succumbed to Ebola in a Dallas hospital, is of course tragic. But the extraordinarily poor way his case appears to have been handled may also inadvertently have done the United States an enormous service -- not just in shining a light on the threat posed by this virus but also by revealing the profound problems both in our health care delivery system and the public health programs supposed to help prevent outbreaks, track contacts and control the spread of disease.
Ebola Case Exposes Weakness in US Preparedness
The welfare of U.S. children
Dr. Irwin Redlener, Co-founder and President of the Children's Health Fund joins Bob Herbert to discuss the health and welfare of children across the U.S. (Taped 08-13-14) Bob Herbert's Op-Ed.TV is a weekly half-hour program featuring interviews with significant men and women from a variety of fields: officeholders and activists, economists, labor leaders, writers and artists.
A Healthy Child Is a Better Student
"I want to be a paleontologist," my young male patient said, squinting at a wrinkled clipping from the newspaper of a dinosaur skeleton at the museum as I examined him. An impressive aspiration for a 10-year-old who looked like he needed glasses, but more so because his family was homeless and had none of the resources that could propel a more fortunate child toward his goal. But like the tens of thousands of kids living in poverty that we see on Children's Health Fund mobile medical clinics across the country, he had a dream and deserved a chance to pursue it.
Undocumented children need charitable help: Column
Children need high-quality health care regardless of citizenship. The justified outrage over detained minors in California, Oklahoma and Texas has focused the nation's attention on what is only the tip of the iceberg. While the number of apprehended, unaccompanied Central American children could reach 90,000 this year, an estimated 1 million undocumented children already live among us.
A Healthy Future for Immigrant Children Is a Healthy Future for the Nation
After years of postponing the inevitable, the U.S. is finally on the verge of reforming our dysfunctional immigration policies. For millions of immigrant families who have committed themselves to building better lives for themselves and their communities, change cannot come too soon. And for the children in these families, their hopes for the future are very much part of America’s future.
Legacy of Katrina: The Impact of a Flawed Recovery on Vulnerable Children of the Gulf Coast
“This study points to a major crisis facing the children of the post-Katrina Gulf Region,” says Irwin Redlener, MD, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and president of the Children’s Health Fund. “From the perspective of the Gulf’s most vulnerable children and families, the recovery from Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans has been a dismal failure.”