This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.
At a congressional hearing last Wednesday, Howard Frumkin, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stated there was strong scientific evidence of major health problems due to climate change in the next few decades, including:
- Heat waves that put kids and the elderly at risk
- Danger of droughts and floods from extreme weather
- Increased food-borne and water-borne infectious diseases
- Worsened air pollution due to higher temperatures
- Migration into new areas of vector-borne diseases like malaria
At least he got to say it. Last October, CDC testimony on the health risks from global warming was censored by the White Home.
Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif), who chaired the hearing, stated she suspected that “a layer of screening” continues to limit what CDC officials are granted to state.
While insisting that CDC had no position on EPA’s pending regulatory decisions, Frumpkin stated, “…there is strong evidence that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas … and there is strong evidence that climate change affects public health in many ways.”
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