PEDIATRICS Vol. 44 No. 5 November 1969, pp. 791-792
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Low, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Low, M.

WELCOMING REMARKS

Merritt Low M.D.1

1 Chairman, Accident Prevention Committee; Greenfield, Massachusetts

The American Academy of Pediatrics has long been interested in the control of Childhood Injuries; its first formal committee was the Committee on Accident Prevention.

The pediatrician is a primary accident preventer and should indeed have a big stake and commitment here. He is basically a "consumer," yet he must be convinced of the product he uses and in turn passes on. Though he has the humility of an amateur, he is allied with the expert and begs for his help. He sees the great strides made by industry, even in the newly developing area of "off-the-job" safety, and the advances made in the therapeutic but not the prophylactic responsibilities of accident prevention as he surveys the situation. Yet, is he truly convinced? If so, he could do more.

We exhort ourselves to immunize our children with a safety vaccine, but is this just borrowed jargon? What are the ingredients of the vaccine? Are they dead or alive? Where are the field trials? Where are the proving figures of effectiveness? A hard look shows us that this number one health problem is not being solved. (I scarcely need remind this group of the statistics and facts: 15,000 children under 15, including 5,000 pre-school children, die of accidents in the United States each year; 15 million children go to doctors for care of accidents in a year; all accidents cost the country over 15 billion dollars a year). In our primary reliance on the tool of "education," we fall victims to the fact-of-life fallacy-if we provide facts we automatically get results.