Suffer the children

Neglecting the victims of Hurricane Katrina -- and that's exactly what we've done -- has had its consequences:

Hurricane Katrina's youngest survivors are now the sickest children in the United States, according to a report released Monday by the New York-based Children's Health Fund and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Many infants and toddlers living in a Louisiana's biggest FEMA trailer park have been found to be anemic because of poor diets, at a rate that health experts said was four times the national average, according to the report. The report reviewed medical records of 261 children who lived in a federally funded Baton Rouge trailer park called Renaissance Village. This is the first in-depth review of Katrina child survivors' medical and mental health since the 2005 hurricanes. ...

Some other key findings from the study:

• 41% of children treated at the clinic who were younger than age four had iron deficiency anemia;
• 55% of elementary-school-aged children had a behavior or learning problem;
• 42% of children had hay fever, and/or upper respiratory infections;
• 24% had a cluster of upper respiratory, allergic and skin ailments;
• One-third of the children had impaired hearing or vision;
• 55% of elementary-school-aged children had a behavior or learning problem;
  

Iron deficiency anemia can cause skin diseases, fatigue and attention-deficit disorder, and other learning problems. Severe deficiency in very young children can delay growth and development and even cause heart murmurs, reports the Associated Press.

"The recovery from Katrina was actually handled far worse even than the initial response," study author Irwin Redlener, a professor at Columbia's School of Public Health told the New York Daily News. "It's just disappeared from public view with an assumption that whatever was done is over."

The Bush response to Katrina was at best incompetent and more likely criminal. Some of these children likely will have life-long health problems. Where do they go to get their health back?

Folks, this is what happens when you elect infantile, dry-drunk, no-conscience-having people you'd like to have a beer with to high office instead of people who actually know what the fuck they're doing. If you voted for George Bush, I don't want to hear any fucking whining from you about the cost of health care, especially for poor people, because it's your fault, bitch.