Associated Press

 Text of letter, dated Monday, sent to Attorney General Janet Reno and Doris
 Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, from
 pediatrician Dr. Irwin Redlener. He is professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein
 College of Medicine, and president and director of community pediatrics at the
 Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York.

 At the request of Commissioner Meissner, I have been actively engaged in
 providing strategic guidance regarding management of the Elian Gonzalez case,
 including the selection of the mental health professional team. This team was
 charged with establishing guidelines to ensure an orderly and positive transfer of
 the child to the custody of his father.

 I believe this nationally esteemed team of child mental health professionals has
 been highly effective in providing the needed guidance. As requested, the team
 focused on recommendations specifically geared toward what the adults related
 to Elian should do in order to ensure the best possible environment for the child's
 reunification with his father. From the beginning, there was an explicit, prospective
 agreement that the mental health team would meet with the father and with the
 custodial family in Miami and not meet directly with the little boy. This was
 because the team was asked to evaluate not whether the transfer was being
 made, but how it would be made in the least traumatic way possible.

 In recent days the crisis has taken a profound turn for the worse. There are
 continued, frantic legal maneuverings of the Miami family, a bevy of new,
 unfounded allegations of paternal abuse raised by the custodial family about the
 father's former relationship with Elian and the release of a videotape showing this
 6-year-old boy expressing anger and other most unusual behaviors on what
 appeared to be a coached, homemade recording. All of this has significantly
 raised the stakes and our level of concern about Elian's immediate well-being,
 particularly since it is occurring in an environment of radical hysteria, and
 suggestions of public defiance and potential violence promulgated by the
 custodial family and their supporters in Miami.

 My point is this: Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his
 physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically
 abusive. In a less politically charged environment, out of the limelight of what has
 become a media frenzy, appropriate child welfare workers and other public
 officials would have already been called upon to evaluate the safety of the current
 environment and, in my view, would have removed Elian from the custody of the
 Lazaro Gonzalez.

 Therefore, in my professional judgment, the United States government, through its
 appropriate agencies and under its legally vested rights and responsibilities,
 should:

 1. Immediately remove Elian Gonzalez from the custody of Lazaro Gonzalez. As I
 indicated above, the current environment and the production of the videotape last
 week reflect a profoundly disturbing and dangerous environment for this child.

 2. Return Elian to the custody of his biologic father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, as
 quickly as possible. Every day, indeed every hour of delay in this inevitable and
 appropriate reunification is harmful to the boy and is the cause of extreme
 anguish to a legitimately distressed father. Our country has no reason and no
 right to continue this unconscionable refutation of a parent's moral right to be with
 his child.

 3. Ask the custodial family to participate in discussions around implementation of
 reunification recommendations made by your own mental health consulting team.
 This should happen once Elian is returned to the custody of his father.

 I believe there is no justification whatsoever to wait any longer in carrying out
 these actions that I believe are legally appropriate and, more importantly, clearly
 in the best interest of this child who continues to be horrendously exploited in this
 bizarre and destructive ambiance. It has gone on far too long.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald