GUEST COLUMN  Each time an infant dies from being shaken by a caregiver, our community also feels shaken. Yet the deaths continue. For more than 10 years, the Child Death Review Team — a group of medical experts, children’s advocates and public health nurses — has been volunteering time to review all sudden and unexpected deaths of Spokane County children from birth to age 18. The team, led by the Spokane Regional Health District, identifies preventable factors that may have contributed to a child’s death. And yet now the budgets for these local programs are being slashed. Read More>>

GUEST COLUMN  When you turn on your tap, you may be drinking water that is a mixture of river water and our aquifer. In several places, the Spokane River runs directly into our aquifer, mixing with the underground lake. Although the city of Spokane treats water before it reaches our homes, in many areas of Spokane County, people’s drinking water is not disinfected before it comes out of the faucet. Drinking water systems that provide tap water from the aquifer do test the water often to ensure drinking water safety standards are being met. Read More>>

GUEST COLUMN  Drowning can happen quietly and quickly. The splashing, screaming and struggling we may expect often does not happen. Because a child can drown in an instant, every child who is playing around or in the water should be watched constantly — drowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury or death for children in Washington. Every year, drowning accounts for an average of 24 deaths, 26 hospitalizations and about 110 visits to emergency rooms for kids 17 and younger, according to the state Department of Health. Read More>>