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1. There isn’t a single American city, in my estimation, that has sufficient plans for a nuclear terrorist event.
2. Poverty-fighting programs are not handouts — they are investments.
3. Poverty leads to hardship and failure.
4. Medicaid and the Child Health Insurance Program are the two most important safety net programs for children.
5. Disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11 were time-limited. The children who were affected psychologically could go to a place of normalcy.
6. The risks are far greater to your child of not getting immunized than any kind of speculative potential relationship between the vaccine and the development of autism.
7. Seven million ship cargo containers come into the United States every year. Five to seven percent only are inspected — five to seven percent.
8. There has been a transition from a nuclear-annihilation scenario to an isolated-terrorist-nuclear-bomb scenario. But we’re still locked into a mind-set that nuclear war would be so overwhelming that any kind of preparedness would be futile.
9. Fallout shelters are like bell-bottoms. They’ve gone in and out of favor.
10. From a population point of view, it’s actually very important that as few people as possible get the flu. People getting the flu is not a private matter. The risk for healthy people is really about your friends and neighbors and fellow travelers.
11. No organization should be allowed near disaster unless they are willing to cooperate with some level of established leadership.
12. Every single administration in American political history has put cronies and pals and donors into political positions. But normally those people become the ambassador to Liechtenstein or the deputy undersecretary of commerce.
13. When children are hungry, sleepy from a night spent fighting untreated asthma, or hobbled by symptoms of undiagnosed illnesses, they are less likely to do well in school.
14. Every school should have well-rehearsed emergency response protocols covering a variety of possible scenarios, from fire to armed intruders. Schools should have good lines of communications with local emergency response officials and practice those relationships in drills and special exercises.
15. The reality is that it’s harder to recruit pediatric subspecialists if you’re not recruiting them for a children’s hospital.
16. Immigrant children are highly vulnerable. Their level of disadvantage and fragility has consistently grown due to factors outside their control.
17. The larger the disaster, the more necessary it is to have the government as the principal driver of recovery.
18. There are several very good websites which describe the details of preparedness planning for citizens.
19. Having insurance doesn’t guarantee good health outcomes, but it is a critical factor.
20. Many low-income children face chronic stress from nutritional deprivation or persistent violence at home or in the community. By addressing their medical, emotional and developmental needs through a comprehensive clinical care model, we can lower their risk of developing long-term physical and mental health issues.