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Pediatrician Honored for Fifty Years of Dedication to Public Health Issues and Child Safety LIVINGSTON, N.J. --During a Thanksgiving weekend in the early 1960s, Saint Barnabas Medical Center pediatrician Seymour Charles, M.D. learned that one of his young patients had been thrown out the window of a moving car after an accident that occurred in Ohio. The child, who had not been restrained by any safety device, died instantly. That incident transformed Dr. Charles, a Maplewood pediatrician, into a crusader for car safety legislation and launched him on a life journey immersed in public safety issues. “Anything that is a threat to the child is of interest to me,” says Dr. Charles, who helped to establish the Department of Transportation and car safety regulations. “Every physician is an agency of the public health and we have the greatest opportunity to safeguard the lives of children in areas beyond immunizations and illness.” On Wednesday, June 14, during the annual Department of Pediatrics-Dinner Dance, Dr. Charles was one of the honorees acknowledged for his fifty years of service to children. In the past he has been honored with the Golden Merit Award from The Medical Society of New Jersey and received a citation as “the leading national advocate for child auto safety” from The American Academy of Pediatrics. “Dr. Charles has been a long-time advocate for important pediatric causes,” says Anthony Minnefor, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at Saint Barnabas. In the early 1960s, after the death of his young patient, Dr. Charles attended an automobile conference on crashes and safety held in Detroit, MI. It was here, he says, that he learned that the design of many cars made it difficult for crash victims to survive. Unrestrained children were especially susceptible to severe injury and death as a result of car accidents. “More children in the United States were dying from injuries sustained in automobile crashes than from all the diseases that we were treating with immunizations,” recalls Dr. Charles. At the meeting, the pediatrician stood and asked why engineers were not manufacturing cars to protect the occupants. He then met Ralph Nader, who approached him at the conference and praised him for his speech. With Mr. Nader’s encouragement, Dr. Charles formed a group called Physicians for Automotive Safety. In 1965, the group picketed outside the Coliseum in New York City, where automakers where holding their annual new car show, and held signs claiming that the cars were “unsafe.” To attract greater attention, Dr. Charles found a car that had been in a crash and had it transported from a dump to his hotel. He then contacted local television stations and held a press conference where he, along with researcher Paul Gikas, showed reporters how victims died from unsafe automobile design. Ralph Nader would later mention Dr. Charles and his efforts in his landmark book, Unsafe at Any Speed. Dr. Charles testified about child car safety before Congress and was invited to the Rose Garden at The White House when Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation to create the Department of Transportation. The federal department then created laws forcing cars to meet certain safety standards. Today, the Department of Transportation sets standards on car seat safety and mandatory child restraint devices. Through the work of Dr. Charles, Saint Barnabas Medical Center was among the first hospitals in New Jersey to instruct new mothers leaving the hospital that the babies should be restrained in car seats. Dr. Charles relates that Saint Barnabas and the Department of Pediatrics have always been “very supportive and public spirited” in terms of child safety and public health concerns. By helping to enact this legislation, Dr. Charles has been credited with saving the lives of millions of Americas children. On a smaller but equally important scale, he has also continued to treat youngsters at a pediatric practice that has moved from Newark to Irvington to its current location in Maplewood. The South Orange resident also recalls the “old days” when his practice used to consist of house calls throughout the Newark area. Never one to rest on past victories, Dr. Charles took on the insurance companies in recent years, working with Senator Bill Bradley to enact legislation requiring new mothers to be allowed a 48-hour hospital stay. His newest crusade is gun awareness, and recently he paid for two billboards, in Newark and Maplewood, which denounce guns in the home. “These issues interest me because they are truly a danger to children, more so than polio or any other disease,” says Dr. Charles. “I am very proud that I have had the opportunity to do what I have done.” [ top ] |
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