Ex-surgeon general: Focus on kids

Sandy Thompson is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4025 or e-mail at [email protected]

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS, the former U.S. surgeon general, could be a preacher or head cheerleader.

As a speaker, she combines a touch of fire and brimstone with a bit of rah-rah to deliver a common-sense, no-nonsense message about children.

"Powerless children are in need of powerful friends," Elders told more than 350 attendees at a recent Child Welfare Conference at UNLV. "We are a throwaway society. We think we can dispose of everything -- including our children."

Many children today unfortunately belong to what Elders calls the "5-H Club." They're hungry, health-less (no access to health care), homeless, hug-less and hopeless. For many children, she says, it's easier to find drugs than hugs.

Elders calls domestic violence the most common crime in America. Thirty percent of all emergency-room visits are by women who are abused. Yet doctors recognize the abuse only 6 percent of the time.

"We have more dog shelters than we have shelters for women and children," Elders says.

She estimates that 26 percent of women and 16 percent of boys in America have been sexually abused.

A pediatric endocrinologist, Elders says she wants to change the way we think about health "by putting prevention first." Ironically, she never went to a doctor until her first year in college.

Her main goal is to ensure that every child is planned and wanted. To prevent unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, family planning programs are needed, Elders says. "Parenting education is sorely needed; early childhood education makes a difference. We must educate our children so they can make good decisions."

To accomplish that, she adds, "we must get over some of our attitudes and deal with problems of sexuality."

Elders advocates making condoms available to teens -- one of her stances that led to her firing as surgeon general in December 1994. She makes no bones about the fact that she was fired because of her beliefs.

Although she realizes the value of spreading the message of abstinence among teens, Elders says we also must be realistic. "The vows of abstinence break far more easily than condoms."

Elders laments today's declining education standards. "Many kids with diplomas can't read. They have shoes that light up when they walk and a brain that goes dead when they talk."

She advocates designing social programs that help children rather than making policies that punish them. She notes that the United States is the world's fastest jailer. Sixty percent of young people in jail are there for nonviolent crimes.

Above all, Elders says, we must provide a social net to catch families when they fall. "We must build strong families. We need to form partnerships and tailor social programs to fit the needs of children and families," she says.

This can be accomplished with her "5-Cs" approach: Courage, compassion, communication, cooperation and collaboration.

"It's our responsibility to make sure that all children have an opportunity to grow up educated, motivated and have hope for the future. To do anything less will destroy our society as we now know it," Elders says.

"The money that we spend on children is an investment -- not an expense. As the old saying goes: 'Our society grows great when old men and old women plant trees under whose shade they know they will never sit.' "

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