Assemblyman Weisenberg secured a $125,000 grant for South Nassau Communities Hospital in 2008 for the continued development of the hospital’s recently opened Center for Cardiovascular Health. The Assemblyman is pictured with (far left) hospital President and CEO Joseph Quagliata and other hospital officials.

In addition to my ongoing efforts to prevent incidents of skin cancer and deaths from sudden cardiac arrest, I have secured hundreds of thousands of dollars for initiatives that improve or add services at our hospitals as well as grants for other health programs, such as pre- and postnatal education, family medicine and adolescent health services.

I championed the development of two facilities - the only ones on Long Island - to care for medically fragile children (click here to read about Angela’s House), and obtained funding for a respite center at University Hospital at Stony Brook for parents of pediatric cancer patients.

Happy Campers at Camp Sunrise. Located in Nassau County, Sunrise is the only day camp in the Northeast for children with cancer. Assemblyman Weisenberg is actively involved with Sunrise.

Legislation I’ve introduced has resulted in measures to help prevent child deaths from choking on food, to prohibit the use of vaccines containing certain amounts of mercury - a known neurotoxin -- to young children and pregnant women, and to require New York’s high school health classes to include units on alcohol, drugs and tobacco.

I have been especially pleased to serve as Honorary Chair of Sunrise Day Camp, the first day camp on the east coast for children with cancer and cancer-related disorders. In that capacity, I was able to raise more than $500,000, including a $250,000 state grant to help build the camp. Run by the Friedberg JCC and located on a 300-acre wooded site bordering Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Sunrise offers its outstanding programs free of charge to children age 3 ½ to 17. The camp, opened in summer 2006, has been so successful that it now offers a range of fun year-round camp activities to children at home or in the hospital. More than 250 children from Long Island and surrounding areas attended the camp last summer.

Assemblyman Weisenberg has worked for years to make people aware of the harmful, and sometimes deadly, effects of the sun. As part of a package of related legislation he introduced, New York State parks, such as Jones Beach, pictured, now feature signs advising visitors about important steps to protect themselves.

For years, an eye-catching billboard on Rockaway Turnpike, featuring the Assemblyman in Albany and on the beach, reminded drivers to always use sunscreen and to make sure that their sunscreen was still effective.