Deirdre Imus
Ms. Imus is the Founder and President of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology® at Hackensack University Medical Center and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer. Deirdre is author of the New York Times bestseller Growing Up Green, Baby and Child Care, a practical family guide to raising children, as well as the first book in the series, the 2007 New York Times bestseller, Green This! Volume 1: Greening Your Cleaning. This book offers a wealth of insights and expertise for protecting families from harmful chemicals. Mrs. Imus also authored The Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids and Cowboys, another bestseller, and is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post.
Known for its creative and progressive vision, the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies serves over 700 students, grades six through 12. The school provides a diverse interdisciplinary learning environment, while maintaining high academic standards and extra-curricular goals. The school follows a philosophy predicated on four defining principles: academic rigor, compassion, diversity and pluralism, collaboration.
After receiving a warm welcome, Ms. Imus praised the future leaders for their participation in the Model United Nations Conference and spoke about why addressing children’s environmental health issues is a global problem and how her own personal journey has resulted in the development of successful programs aimed at reducing environmental toxins.
“When you see the state of children’s health statistics it begs the question of what is causing this,” asks Ms. Imus. Reciting a long list of chronic illnesses including cancer, asthma, arthritis, autism, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis and bipolar disorder, Mrs. Imus explained how these diseases are on the rise, some of them reaching epidemic levels.
“When we began investigating these diseases, we found that many can be triggered by the environment. In fact, the World Health Organization tells us that the environment significantly affects more than 80 percent of major diseases."
Ms. Imus described how her own charitable work at the Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer led to the opening of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology® and a mission focused on controlling and eliminating environmental toxins that cause childhood cancer and other diseases.
Speaking to an enthusiastic audience of the city’s brightest and most creative young people, Ms. Imus recounted how she began looking at toxic chemical cleaning products used in hospitals and wanted to change this common practice. With encouragement from Hackensack University Medical Center, Ms. Imus created the Greening the Cleaning® line of industrial cleaners and switched toxic cleaning products over to non-toxic cleaners creating a safer, healthier hospital environment.
“Because of our success at Hackensack University Medical Center, we have been able to take Greening the Cleaning® nationally and implement our program in hundreds of hospitals, schools, day care centers and other facilities.”
Ms. Imus also spoke about how the switch to non-toxic cleaners led to another project with the hospital, the construction of a 300,000 sq. ft. building for women and children using non-toxic 100% recyclable building materials. It is one of the first environmentally responsible and sustainable healthcare facilities of its size, and was named one of America’s Top 10 Green Hospitals by The Green Guide.
Expanding on how toxins are present everywhere in our daily lives, Ms. Imus warned the students about cancer-causing chemicals found in cosmetics and directed them to sources where they can find “green” personal care products.
In her closing remarks, Ms. Imus reminded the students that all these changes can have a direct impact on their health and that these are all things they can do for themselves, in their homes, schools and in their communities.
“It is your generation that is going to take on these initiatives,” explained Ms. Imus. “There are no small changes in life. While there are single fundamental changes we can all make, even if it is just one thing we do, each one of us can have a positive impact."
For additional information about the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies visit:
http://www.nyclabschool.org/site_res_view_template.aspx?id=1a822e17-9514-484a-bcb9-2ef95c1bdaaf
To learn more about Green Teens and Teens for Safe Cosmetics go to:
http://www.dienviro.com/index1.aspx?BD=18509
Deirdre Imus is the founder and President of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology®, part of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) in New Jersey, a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit corporation. The Environmental Center represents one of the first hospital-based programs whose specific mission is to identify, control, and ultimately prevent exposures to environmental factors that may cause adult, and especially pediatric cancer, as well as other health problems with our children.
Ms. Imus is also co-founder and co-director of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, an authentic 4,000 acre working cattle ranch in northern New Mexico, which provides the experience of the American cowboy to children suffering from cancer and various blood diseases, as well as to children who have lost a brother or sister to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
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