Irwin Redlener Quotations

Seven million ship cargo containers come into the United States every year. Five to seven percent only are inspected - five to seven percent.

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.

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.

Having insurance doesn't guarantee good health outcomes, but it is a critical factor.

Immigrant children are highly vulnerable. Their level of disadvantage and fragility has consistently grown due to factors outside their control.

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.

Police officers and firemen are so visible in their daily work, there's no mistaking they're there - and that presence makes people feel secure.

Very large scale disasters, especially those that have occurred in the developing world, have very long recovery periods.

The problem with most children's hospitals is that they are passive. They are high quality. They are filled with the best doctors. But their function is to wait until kids get sick and get referred in.

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.

Kids get a lot of lip service in disaster planning, but they tend to get far fewer resources than they need. The mantra of 'children are our most valuable resource' is almost never matched by actual funding.

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.

Fallout shelters are like bell-bottoms. They've gone in and out of favor.

Americans do not have a good track record when it comes to preparing for disasters, unless they see a clear possibility of personally being in harms way.

Medicaid and the Child Health Insurance Program are the two most important safety net programs for children.

No organization should be allowed near disaster unless they are willing to cooperate with some level of established leadership.

There are several very good websites which describe the details of preparedness planning for citizens.

There's detailed information on how to assemble a nuclear weapon from parts. There's books about how to build a nuclear bomb.

There's only so much academic disruption that a young child can deal with before he just can't catch up.

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.

Poverty-fighting programs are not handouts - they are investments.

If a severe pandemic materializes, all of society could pay a heavy price for decades of failing to create a rational system of health care that works for all of us.

If we ensure access to health care and 'best practice' asthma treatment for children, especially those at high risk, there is the potential to save the health care system billions of dollars.

The best way to get a sense of what kinds of emergencies might present themselves in your community is by contacting local chapters of the American Red Cross or offices of emergency management in the region or state. Most large cities will have their own offices of emergency management.

The reality is that it's harder to recruit pediatric subspecialists if you're not recruiting them for a children's hospital.

There isn't a single American city, in my estimation, that has sufficient plans for a nuclear terrorist event.

Even the best community organizations and faith-based initiatives and the extraordinary charity of Americans across the country can't carry the brunt of eliminating poverty.

Nuclear terrorism is possible - it may be probable - but is survivable.

President Obama was deeply and clearly affected by the Sandy Hook disaster.

The larger the disaster, the more necessary it is to have the government as the principal driver of recovery.

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.

We are profoundly unprepared to manage a pandemic flu threat right now,

We started from zero five weeks ago to all this hot, hot spotlight on pandemic flu, but we're not going to be ready.

We heard this horrific story today of a woman whose husband died and she sat in the tent for hours because there's nothing you can do with the body ... and just went to tell the coroner, 'I marked it and you can find the body here or there,'

We're seeing tremendous pressure at all levels to get ready for an imminent hurricane season, but on the federal level it seems frantic, not thoughtful.

Many people will be stressed and will require support over a long period of time and will be vulnerable to psychological problems. We know this from other disaster experiences.

I wouldn't be too quick to predict how this is going to turn out,

Within the next six months, we'll have infected birds in the U.S..

We're only missing one more piece before it becomes a pandemic and that is the ability to be transmitted from person to person as opposed to simply from birds or fowl to humans,

We're playing Russian roulette with public health here.

I would like to see a new national discussion about what prepared means, how it's measured and what we should expect. Since 9-11, the nation has spent tens of billions of dollars on preparedness, yet we can account for very little and can hardly say what actually has been accomplished.

You have sewage contaminating the water supply. You not only have the danger of the sewage itself, the need for water is one of the primary needs that must be fulfilled and people will drink dirty water, if they get thirsty enough.

You have sewage contaminating the water supply, ... You not only have the danger of the sewage itself, the need for water is one of the primary needs that must be fulfilled and people will drink dirty water, if they get thirsty enough.

When you drive around Biloxi and see all those houses that have been very badly damaged and see people living in the rubble for weeks and weeks, it's easy to understand how traumatizing this has been for these families.

expressing anger and other most unusual behaviors on what appeared to be a coached, homemade recording.

What we are looking at are extremely grim prospects for the future. This is a very overwhelmed system.

Disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11 were time-limited. The children who were affected psychologically could go to a place of normalcy.

The translation of this is martial law in the United States,

Because the sheer size of the impact was so large, I think there is a greater sense of despair and loss that people are experiencing. This experience of dramatic, prolonged displacement will create a toll long into the future.

Poverty leads to hardship and failure.

Disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11 were time-limited. The children who were affected psychologically could go to a place of normalcy.

Many 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.

The health care system is at least crippled, if not completely out of commission.

The illusion is that help (from the federal government) will be there minutes later, which is really not the case,

The lethal capacity of this virus is very, very high, so it's a deadly virus that humans have not been exposed to before. That's a very bad combination.