The following is a press release written by Rock Emmert for Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life.
Dr. Norma Schue Kreilein, a native of Ferdinand, Indiana, has been selected by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to receive the Local Hero Award—a prestigious national honor—for her 15-year advocacy for children disproportionately exposed to toxic air in environmental sacrifice zones like southwestern Indiana.
The award will be presented during the 2026 AAP National Conference and Exhibition this Saturday, October 3, in San Diego, California. Following the conference, Dr. Kreilein will be invited to give a virtual presentation to share her work and insights with the AAP Council on Community Pediatrics.
State officials create sacrifice zones, especially in rural and minority communities, by granting permits to multiple giant polluters to build and pollute in an area that already has extremely high levels of toxic emissions. Authorities, over decades, effectively and silently trade health and safety of local residents, including children, for economic gain.
Well-known effects of high doses of pollution upon children's health include autism, infant mortality, certain childhood cancers, low birth weight, and birth defects. Kreilein calls for the medical community to make pollution a social determinant of children's health, especially in high-pollution-exposure regions.
In southwestern Indiana, according to Indiana University geography professor, Dr. Annie Shattuck, during a presentation in rural Dale, Indiana, (Spencer County) in April of this year, "The Environmental Protection Agency requires industries to report their toxic releases. Spencer County alone has more industrial toxic releases, by pound, than Los Angeles, Philly, Chicago, and Atlanta combined because of the coal-fired plants and industries here."
Under government-controlled state agencies' watch, Indiana consistently ranks 49th and 50th in toxic emissions and environmental quality, and among the bottom in public health.
The AAP states, "The Local Hero Award recognizes pediatricians . . . who lead community action and advocacy for children in local communities. This award is presented to local individuals who epitomize the 'community pediatrician'."
Kreilein states, "I hope this national award will help to empower medical doctors everywhere to challenge local, state, and national elected officials—and their environmental and health agencies—to enact preventive policies addressing childhood illnesses, to prioritize children's health over polluting industries, especially in the most overburdened and neglected regions. I'm honored to be a part of Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life, swicql.org. Children in sacrifice zones especially need the voices of the doctors above all others."
Kreilein, also a strong advocate for breastfeeding, formerly served as a pediatrician in Jasper, Indiana, where from 2011-2014 as president of Healthy Dubois County, she led—and largely funded—the successful opposition, including litigation, to a toxic, $15 million, biomass incinerator within the city limits, a facility approved by city officials, that would have taken at least 40 lives annually, according to Notre Dame ethicist and scientist Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette, who studied the Jasper proposal in depth.
From 2017-2023, she was the leading medical voice advocating for children in opposing a massive, $2.5 billion, state-sanctioned, highly-polluting coal-to-diesel refinery in rural Dale, Indiana, in Spencer County. The county consistently ranks in the worst 1% in the US in toxic emissions. Kreilein's and SWICQL's efforts, greatly supported by Valley Watch and Earthjustice, helped to stop the project.
Kreilein has been peer-reviewed and published extensively on the subject of environmental sacrifice zones and has spoken and presented posters at national and international medical conferences. Researching, identifying, and calling for the alleviation of an overlooked root cause of childhood illnesses—overexposure to extremely disproportionate industrial pollution emissions—she receives this AAP award as a role model for others in her field, educators, and all concerned about children's health.
She currently is semi-retired and serves as a locum tenens doctor at multiple hospitals while she continues her advocacy for prevention of childhood illnesses. For example, at this same AAP conference in San Diego, Kreilein is presenting a peer-reviewed abstract on the topic of the challenges of being a rural pediatrician in a sacrifice zone, and the need for greater advocacy from the medical community.
