Institute of Medicine Op-Ed

During July 1995, Chicago was gripped by a heat wave that still ranks as one of the deadliest in U.S. history.1

Estimates vary, but more than 700 people, many of them elderly and isolated, may have died as a result of the heat, which soared as high as 106 degrees.2 The federal government dispatched refrigerator trucks to store the deceased, hospitals shut down emergency rooms (ERs) for lack of space, roads buckled from the heat, and the Chicago Fire Department had to hose down children who were overcome by dehydration.3

Now, imagine if we experienced multiple Chicago heat waves every summer, in cities all across the country. That is the direction we are headed unless we change course and take strong, decisive action to curb climate change.

Read Donna Shalala and Alfred Sommer’s full op-ed in Institute of Medicine here.