Who is Deirdre Imus, and why does her name still come up next to a children’s hospital program, a New Mexico cattle ranch and Texas art galleries?
Deirdre Imus is an American author, environmental health advocate, philanthropist and painter. She founded the Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, cofounded the Imus Ranch for children with cancer with her husband, radio host Don Imus, and has painted abstract work since 2021.
Quick facts
- Birth name: Deirdre Jane Coleman, according to IMDb
- Marriage: Don Imus, from December 1994 until his death on December 27, 2019
- Hospital work: Founder and president of the environmental health center at Hackensack University Medical Center
- Charity work: Cofounder and codirector of the Imus Ranch, started in 1998
- Books: Four, including titles in the New York Times bestselling Green This! series
- Art: Texas based painter who calls her method “stranding”
How a Radio Show Guest Became a Hospital Founder
Most people first met Deirdre Imus through “Imus in the Morning,” where she appeared often as a guest. Before that she went by Deirdre Coleman. IMDb lists small acting roles from the late 1990s, and its profile says she worked as a personal trainer at the Plaza Hotel gym in Manhattan before the marriage. The Associated Press reported that Don Imus remarried in December 1994, to the former Deirdre Coleman.
What she did next with that public profile is the part that earned her a place in health news.
Inside the Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center
The center sits within Hackensack University Medical Center. Hackensack Meridian Health describes it as one of the first hospital based programs built to find, control and eventually prevent toxic exposures in the environment that threaten children’s health. Her LinkedIn profile lists 2001 as the year she started as founder.
A few things the program is known for:
- Greening The Cleaning: a program and product line that swaps hazardous ingredients in common cleaning products for less toxic ones where possible. Nassau University Medical Center became the first hospital on Long Island to adopt it.
- Hospital design: Sanzari Women’s Hospital at Hackensack was designed with the center and landed on the Green Guide’s list of Top 10 Green Hospitals in the country.
- Awards for the hospital: Hackensack University Medical Center won the Practice Greenhealth Top 25 Environmental Excellence Award in 2016, its third year in a row, according to NJBIZ.
In a statement quoted by NJBIZ, she said “Health care should do more than treat diseases.”
The Books
She also wrote four books for parents and home cooks:
- Green This! Greening Your Cleaning, which argues that some chemicals used to clean homes can do families more harm than good
- Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care, published by Simon & Schuster in April 2008
- The Essential Green You!, the third volume in the Green This! series, covering food, clothing, cosmetics and toiletries
- The Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids and Cowboys, published by Rodale in 2004
Honors
- 2007: The National Audubon Society announced her as one of four women to receive its Rachel Carson Award for Women in Conservation
- 2007: The National Autism Association gave her its BELIEVE award
- 2013: She received the Canary Award for work toward a healthier future for children
The Imus Ranch Years: Praise, Costs and Questions
Don and Deirdre Imus started the Imus Ranch in 1998 as a nonprofit in the Pecos River Valley of New Mexico. The Associated Press described a 2,400 acre property about 45 miles east of Santa Fe, where children visited for nine days each summer. Kids with cancer and other serious illnesses worked with horses and cattle and stayed in the main hacienda.
The ranch stopped taking children after the 2014 season. Don Imus said on air that he broke his ribs in a fall and could not breathe well at high altitude. It sold for about $12.5 million in 2018, roughly a third of the original asking price, The NonProfit Times reported.
The ranch also drew scrutiny:
- Cost per child: The NonProfit Times reported the spending worked out to more than $25,000 per child served.
- Personal use: A 2005 Wall Street Journal story raised questions about the nonprofit’s status and the family’s own use of the property. Don Imus called it a “hatchet job.”
- Investigations: The attorneys general in New York and New Mexico looked into the ranch, and no action was taken, according to reports at the time.
The nonprofit’s last available tax filing showed grants of $250,000 to SKIP of New York and $100,000 to the Eileen Fund for medical research in 2016.
The Vaccine and Autism Debate
This is the most disputed part of her public record. She argued publicly, including on her husband’s radio show and in writing for the Huffington Post, that thimerosal in vaccines played a role in autism. Physicians and science writers pushed back, pointing to studies that found no link between thimerosal and autism.
Anyone reading about her health advocacy should keep both sides of that record in view: the hospital program built around reducing chemical exposure, and a vaccine position that doctors disputed.
After 2019: Loss, Then Painting
Don Imus died on December 27, 2019, at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, at age 79. A family statement said Deirdre, his wife of 25 years, and their son Wyatt were with him. It also described Zachary Don Cates, who first came to the family at age 10 as an Imus Ranch camper after beating leukemia, as the couple’s second son.
She went back to painting afterward. In 2021 she developed what she calls stranding, or “strand of emotion painting,” where the feeling is the subject. Her best known line about it: “I’m merely painting the attitude, emotion, remnant.”
Her recent milestones:
- Gallery representation: Courtney Collins Fine Art in Big Sky, Montana, and Schoonover Gallery in Steamboat Springs, Colorado
- Solo show: “The Things We Carry,” a 40 piece collection at Art Gotham that she created as a tribute to her late husband
- Government listing: The U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program carries a profile of her work
She also sold the couple’s Central Park West penthouse in late December 2022. Property records showed $8.8 million, against a $16.9 million asking price when it first listed in 2016, according to The Real Deal.
Deirdre Imus Timeline: Key Dates
- 1994: Marries Don Imus
- 1998: Imus Ranch opens in New Mexico
- 2001: Starts as founder of the Hackensack environmental health center, per her LinkedIn profile
- 2007: Receives the Rachel Carson Award
- 2014: Ranch stops hosting children
- 2018: Ranch sells and “Imus in the Morning” ends on March 29
- 2019: Don Imus dies
- 2021: Begins the stranding technique
- 2022: Central Park West penthouse sells
The record spans a hospital program other hospitals copied, a charity praised for its mission and questioned over its costs, a vaccine stance that doctors disputed, and a second career in paint that started after her husband’s death.
Sources: Hackensack Meridian Health | NJBIZ | The NonProfit Times | ABC7 NY, Associated Press obituary | U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies
