May 27, 2020 1:04 PM EDT
As US cases of COVID-19 near 1.7 million, we continue to learn more about the nature of the disease, including the factors that influence susceptibility to COVID-19 and the severity of symptoms.
Some of these risk factors, like age and certain health conditions, are beyond our ability to control.
Others, we have a shot at improving. Read more >
April 22, 2020 5:57 PM EDT
If we didn’t know it before—or had forgotten—the escalating pandemic and its widening economic ripple effects are hammering home the reality that our world is full of risk and uncertainty. Preparedness is paramount. Resilience is essential. And apart from the nation’s healthcare system, nowhere is this more apparent right now than when it comes to keeping ourselves fed, as food producers, workers, and consumers alike face mounting threats to their health and well-being.
Because the system wasn’t designed to protect them.
March 27, 2020 4:44 PM EDT
As the coronavirus crisis keeps most Americans at home, many of us have pantries comfortably stocked with food and can have groceries delivered to our doorsteps in a matter of hours. But millions of our neighbors have trouble putting food on the table in the best of times, and they’re now joined by many more people abruptly facing job loss and hunger. Meanwhile, many of the people who produce and safeguard our food supply are confronted with increased health risk and economic catastrophe. Read more >
March 13, 2020 12:25 PM EDT
As we face a pandemic—and what is rapidly becoming a serious economic crisis in reaction to it—the strength of our social safety net truly could not be more important than it is right now. Read more >
February 18, 2020 11:43 AM EDT
Life comes at you fast, and so does the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on children’s health. Over the last many months, my colleagues in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy have been hard at work rounding up stories of action or inaction, at agencies from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and beyond, that put the nation’s children in greater danger. Their report and related not-really-for-kids-storybook came out last week, and I encourage you to read them both.
But sadly, the tally is already a bit out of date. Even as our report was in press, the administration was jumping on a few more opportunities to put kids at risk.
