Kristie Ebi, a professor at the Center for Health and Global Environment at the University of Washington, explains that: “It remains problematic to trade off mortality and morbidity from hot versus cold temperature extremes. People are not fungible. The goal of public health is to prevent as much morbidity and mortality as possible.”
Scientists argue that the administration's new report, composed in less than two months by five authors known to have skeptical views on climate science, would not pass any peer review process. Kristie Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington, states that “There is a history of some of the authors of this document cherry-picking dates to show that there is no change, but they’re not providing the evidence to support that."
UW Department of Global Health Professor and epidemiologist, Kristie Ebi, states that research regarding this intense heatwave may be underestimating the deaths because it relies on mortality data from a cooler past.
University of Washington Department of Global Health Professor and epidemiologist, Kristie Ebi, claims that “If it doesn’t cool down at night, then your core body temperature can’t really get back to what is normal for you. You’re starting the next morning with a higher baseline.” That’s why death rates start to increase after about 24 hours during heat waves. “It’s not the instantaneous exposure; it’s the buildup over the course of a day, not getting relief at night. That starts affecting the cells and organs,” Ebi says.
Adjunct Professor of Global Health, Helen Chu, went through two years of a rigorous application process to apply to one of the country’s top vaccine advisory panels at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last July, she began what she thought would be a four-year term with the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. But less than a year later and via a brief and vague email, Chu was abruptly dismissed. The June 9 email didn’t specify why, she said.
Adjunct Professor of Global Health, Helen Chu, went through a multiyear process to finally gain a seat on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccines experts panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. She and the rest of her colleagues on the ACIP were summarily terminated.
UW Department of Global Health Professor, Steve Gloyd, had decried what he calls “phantom aid,” in which he said 30 to 60 percent of the total budget of some global health aid projects never even leave the headquarters of the nongovernmental organization hired to manage the program. International NGOs also can inflate the salaries of local staff, draining health ministries of expertise and raising in-country costs.
Department of Global Health Professor, James Pfeiffer, weighs in on recent cuts to federal aid funding: "The Trump administration's cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other aid funding for global health are cruel and catastrophic."
The Trump administration has put the nation’s most comprehensive climate study on hold and told hundreds of scientists working on it that their services are no longer needed.
Peter Rabinowitz, the director of The Center for One Health Research at the University of Washington, which investigates disease between animals and humans, weighs in on this growing trend.