In order to help keep you more informed, the White House is hosting monthly calls to provide updates on various disability issues, as well as to introduce individuals who work on disability issues in the federal government.
The next call will take place on Thursday, April 28 at 2:00 PM Eastern.
Dial in for listeners: United States: (888) 428-4479
Title: White House Disability Call (use instead of code)
Please call in at least five minutes prior to the start of the call.
For live captioning during the call, visit http://www.fedrcc.us//Enter.aspx?EventID=1745291&CustomerID=321.
This call is off the record and not for press purposes.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Medicare fight cranks up in N.C. - Apr 27, 2011 National - NewsObserver
Medicare fight cranks up in N.C. - National - NewsObserver.com
BY ROB CHRISTENSEN - Staff writer
SPRING HOPE -- The political battle over Medicare began playing out in North Carolina on Tuesday, with town hall meetings, speeches to retirement communities, robocalls and plans for a rally.
The chief target was newly minted Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers of Dunn, who last week voted for the GOP House budget plan that called for an overhaul of Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and the disabled.
Ellmers, anticipating the Democratic attacks, hit the road Tuesday for the first in a series of town hall meetings to explain her vote. She came prepared with a PowerPoint presentation filled with charts and warnings about the perils of a growing national debt from people ranging from former UNC system president Erskine Bowles to economist Paul Samuelson.
"There are distortions out there being put forward by the left that Republicans are going to put Medicare out of business," she told 16 people at a friendly midafternoon town hall meeting at the Spring Hope municipal building. "There is nothing that could be further from the truth."
Ellmers was one of 50 Republican House members who were targeted this week with automated phone calls into their districts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee accusing her of trying to "end Medicare."
Also Tuesday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, whose district adjoins Ellmers, began a series of news conferences at retirement communities saying the GOP-backed plan would eventually require many seniors to pay large parts of their medical bills as out-of-pocket expenses.
"People on Medicare could possibly end up possibly paying half of their income on health care," Miller warned about 35 seniors at a breakfast at Whitaker Glenn Retirement Community in Raleigh.
He said the Republican budget plan, which is called the Path to Prosperity, should be renamed The Path to Profits for Insurance Companies.
Miller said he expects House Democrats across the country to stress the issue, which he believes is damaging to one of the nation's most popular social programs. Miller, of Raleigh, is scheduled Thursday to attend a "Don't Make Us Work 'Til We Die" rally outside the Social Security office in Raleigh. The rally is being sponsored by labor and other liberal groups and is aimed at Ellmers.
The Ryan plan:
The Republican plan drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and approved by the House would not affect current seniors, but would sharply change the program for people under 55. It would require future Medicare recipients to buy private insurance policies through the Medicare program.
Ellmers and other Republican supporters say moving health insurance for seniors to private insurance companies will work much better and promote competition. Democrats such as Miller say people are satisfied with the current government-run program, and say the GOP plan won't provide enough money to maintain the current level of health care services.
At her town meeting, Ellmers delivered a sober assessment of the national debt. With a series of graphs and pie charts, she argued that only a serious effort to rein in major fixed costs such as Medicare could reduce the debt - not popular remedies such as cutting out fraud or eliminating foreign aid, which would have little effect.
"I am not going to try to blow smoke up your skirt," Ellmers said. "I'm telling you the way it is because it is too important not to know the truth."
Private insurers:
Ellmers said the Republican Medicare plan would be similar to the health plan offered to members of Congress, allowing people to choose a private insurer with the government under Medicare paying a set amount. Ellmers said having private companies provide insurance to the elderly would promote competition and lower prices.
She said funding for Medicare would rise under the Republican budget. She said under the Democratic health care plan passed by Congress last year, $500 billion was cut out.
"If you are 55 years or older your Medicare will not change," she said.
But Ken Ripley, the editor of the Spring Hope Enterprise, said that after battling insurance companies for the past four years, "I haven't seen dealing with private insurance companies is anything good."
Ellmers' talk seemed to go over very well with her audience.
"I thought it was very clear to what the Ryan budget says," said Bob Sutter of Spring Hope, who promotes peanut growers. He supports the GOP plan. "We do have to figure out how to spend less money. We can not continue to spend 40 percent more than we take in."
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/27/1156291/medicare-fight-cranks-up-in-nc.html#ixzz1KjGSEzc7
BY ROB CHRISTENSEN - Staff writer
SPRING HOPE -- The political battle over Medicare began playing out in North Carolina on Tuesday, with town hall meetings, speeches to retirement communities, robocalls and plans for a rally.
The chief target was newly minted Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers of Dunn, who last week voted for the GOP House budget plan that called for an overhaul of Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and the disabled.
Ellmers, anticipating the Democratic attacks, hit the road Tuesday for the first in a series of town hall meetings to explain her vote. She came prepared with a PowerPoint presentation filled with charts and warnings about the perils of a growing national debt from people ranging from former UNC system president Erskine Bowles to economist Paul Samuelson.
"There are distortions out there being put forward by the left that Republicans are going to put Medicare out of business," she told 16 people at a friendly midafternoon town hall meeting at the Spring Hope municipal building. "There is nothing that could be further from the truth."
Ellmers was one of 50 Republican House members who were targeted this week with automated phone calls into their districts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee accusing her of trying to "end Medicare."
Also Tuesday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, whose district adjoins Ellmers, began a series of news conferences at retirement communities saying the GOP-backed plan would eventually require many seniors to pay large parts of their medical bills as out-of-pocket expenses.
"People on Medicare could possibly end up possibly paying half of their income on health care," Miller warned about 35 seniors at a breakfast at Whitaker Glenn Retirement Community in Raleigh.
He said the Republican budget plan, which is called the Path to Prosperity, should be renamed The Path to Profits for Insurance Companies.
Miller said he expects House Democrats across the country to stress the issue, which he believes is damaging to one of the nation's most popular social programs. Miller, of Raleigh, is scheduled Thursday to attend a "Don't Make Us Work 'Til We Die" rally outside the Social Security office in Raleigh. The rally is being sponsored by labor and other liberal groups and is aimed at Ellmers.
The Ryan plan:
The Republican plan drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and approved by the House would not affect current seniors, but would sharply change the program for people under 55. It would require future Medicare recipients to buy private insurance policies through the Medicare program.
Ellmers and other Republican supporters say moving health insurance for seniors to private insurance companies will work much better and promote competition. Democrats such as Miller say people are satisfied with the current government-run program, and say the GOP plan won't provide enough money to maintain the current level of health care services.
At her town meeting, Ellmers delivered a sober assessment of the national debt. With a series of graphs and pie charts, she argued that only a serious effort to rein in major fixed costs such as Medicare could reduce the debt - not popular remedies such as cutting out fraud or eliminating foreign aid, which would have little effect.
"I am not going to try to blow smoke up your skirt," Ellmers said. "I'm telling you the way it is because it is too important not to know the truth."
Private insurers:
Ellmers said the Republican Medicare plan would be similar to the health plan offered to members of Congress, allowing people to choose a private insurer with the government under Medicare paying a set amount. Ellmers said having private companies provide insurance to the elderly would promote competition and lower prices.
She said funding for Medicare would rise under the Republican budget. She said under the Democratic health care plan passed by Congress last year, $500 billion was cut out.
"If you are 55 years or older your Medicare will not change," she said.
But Ken Ripley, the editor of the Spring Hope Enterprise, said that after battling insurance companies for the past four years, "I haven't seen dealing with private insurance companies is anything good."
Ellmers' talk seemed to go over very well with her audience.
"I thought it was very clear to what the Ryan budget says," said Bob Sutter of Spring Hope, who promotes peanut growers. He supports the GOP plan. "We do have to figure out how to spend less money. We can not continue to spend 40 percent more than we take in."
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/27/1156291/medicare-fight-cranks-up-in-nc.html#ixzz1KjGSEzc7
Illinois: Cook County officials plan to shut down WIC program, health screenings for pregnant women to infant formula for new moms - April 2011
Union, commissioner question Cook County’s plan to cut WIC program - Chicago Sun-Times
BY LISA DONOVAN Cook County Reporter : Apr 22, 2011
Cook County officials plan to shut down a program that provides everything from health screenings for pregnant women to infant formula for new moms across the suburbs — but it wont be closed without a fight.
Stephen Martin, Chief Operating Officer of the Cook County Department of Public Health, has told a range of officials the county will no longer provide services funded by the federal Women, Infants and Children Program.
Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who represents the North Side and suburbs, said Martin told him earlier this week that won’t mean the assistance will dry up for those who rely on the program, which include some of the poorest families in the county.
“If we don’t do it, they’ll give [the WIC money] to other community groups to handle the program,” Suffredin said.
Still, Suffredin says he has questions about what it means to eliminate the program. By one estimate the county’s WIC program, which has offices in the Rolling Meadows, Bridgeview and Markham courthouses and another site in Maywood, has a caseload of 20,000 women and children.
“The issues are, who will provide these services and who will provide the outreach to connect people with these services?’’ Suffredin asked. “Should this have been Dr. Martin’s decision alone? Or should it have gone to the [health] board?”
Sean McDermott, a spokesman for the county public health department, assured “the WIC program will continue in Cook County, it will just be provided by’’— possibly one or more social service agencies.
Under the county, costs were exceeding revenues for the $3 million-a-year program, leaving public health officials with no other choice than to stop running it, McDermott said. Officials have said county ordinance requires grant-funded programs to stay on budget.
But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 31, is planning to fight the move.
“With virtually no rationale and no public input, Cook County is preparing to eliminate these vital services,” AFSCME Local 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer wrote in a letter to county commissioners this week.
The AFSCME note, obtained by the Sun-Times, says Martin said during an April 15 tele-conference with union and program officials that a 10 percent cut in federal WIC funding means the county can no longer afford to administer the program completely from outside funds, as required.
McDermott wasn’t aware of the 10 percent cut mentioned in the AFSCME letter.
“Regardless of whatever cut comes down, this program in the last three years has not been keeping up with expenses,” McDermott said.
Asked why the program didn’t cut back on expenses rather than shutting down, McDermott said: “I don’t know the state allows us to shave back the program. Instead of 20,000, we only want 10,000. The cost of the program exceeds revenues we have to run.’’
He said public officials notified the state that they won’t be renewing the contract to run the program in the county. The county’s contract ends June 30. But public health officials are working with the state to find one or more social service agencies that could administer the program. Whether the offices will remain in the same locations is unclear.
AFSCME officials said about 70 AFSCME employees, including nutritionists and support staff, will lose their jobs if the county discontinues the local WIC program.
Bayer said in the letter that cutting the WIC program goes beyond job cuts.
“Ending the program has repercussions beyond just the families it serves,’’ he wrote. “There is a synergistic relationship between Cook County WIC and Cook County health care services — which serves to improve health care outcomes for program participants. Women come to WIC to obtain food benefits, but then are referred into the County health system. In fact, studies show an important benefit of WIC is that it provides a gateway to healthcare for participants. Referrals work the other way as well, and clients getting health are services at the County find it easy to apply for WIC.”
BY LISA DONOVAN Cook County Reporter : Apr 22, 2011
Cook County officials plan to shut down a program that provides everything from health screenings for pregnant women to infant formula for new moms across the suburbs — but it wont be closed without a fight.
Stephen Martin, Chief Operating Officer of the Cook County Department of Public Health, has told a range of officials the county will no longer provide services funded by the federal Women, Infants and Children Program.
Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who represents the North Side and suburbs, said Martin told him earlier this week that won’t mean the assistance will dry up for those who rely on the program, which include some of the poorest families in the county.
“If we don’t do it, they’ll give [the WIC money] to other community groups to handle the program,” Suffredin said.
Still, Suffredin says he has questions about what it means to eliminate the program. By one estimate the county’s WIC program, which has offices in the Rolling Meadows, Bridgeview and Markham courthouses and another site in Maywood, has a caseload of 20,000 women and children.
“The issues are, who will provide these services and who will provide the outreach to connect people with these services?’’ Suffredin asked. “Should this have been Dr. Martin’s decision alone? Or should it have gone to the [health] board?”
Sean McDermott, a spokesman for the county public health department, assured “the WIC program will continue in Cook County, it will just be provided by’’— possibly one or more social service agencies.
Under the county, costs were exceeding revenues for the $3 million-a-year program, leaving public health officials with no other choice than to stop running it, McDermott said. Officials have said county ordinance requires grant-funded programs to stay on budget.
But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 31, is planning to fight the move.
“With virtually no rationale and no public input, Cook County is preparing to eliminate these vital services,” AFSCME Local 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer wrote in a letter to county commissioners this week.
The AFSCME note, obtained by the Sun-Times, says Martin said during an April 15 tele-conference with union and program officials that a 10 percent cut in federal WIC funding means the county can no longer afford to administer the program completely from outside funds, as required.
McDermott wasn’t aware of the 10 percent cut mentioned in the AFSCME letter.
“Regardless of whatever cut comes down, this program in the last three years has not been keeping up with expenses,” McDermott said.
Asked why the program didn’t cut back on expenses rather than shutting down, McDermott said: “I don’t know the state allows us to shave back the program. Instead of 20,000, we only want 10,000. The cost of the program exceeds revenues we have to run.’’
He said public officials notified the state that they won’t be renewing the contract to run the program in the county. The county’s contract ends June 30. But public health officials are working with the state to find one or more social service agencies that could administer the program. Whether the offices will remain in the same locations is unclear.
AFSCME officials said about 70 AFSCME employees, including nutritionists and support staff, will lose their jobs if the county discontinues the local WIC program.
Bayer said in the letter that cutting the WIC program goes beyond job cuts.
“Ending the program has repercussions beyond just the families it serves,’’ he wrote. “There is a synergistic relationship between Cook County WIC and Cook County health care services — which serves to improve health care outcomes for program participants. Women come to WIC to obtain food benefits, but then are referred into the County health system. In fact, studies show an important benefit of WIC is that it provides a gateway to healthcare for participants. Referrals work the other way as well, and clients getting health are services at the County find it easy to apply for WIC.”
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Autism Now: Robert MacNeil Answers Viewer-Submitted Questions on Series: Transcript & video | PBS NewsHour | April 26, 2011 |
Autism Now: MacNeil Answers Viewer-Submitted Questions on Series | PBS NewsHour | April 26, 2011 | PBS
SUMMARY
In response to Robert MacNeil's six-part Autism Now series, the NewsHour received scores of questions, compliments and concerns via our website, social media and voicemail. Hari Sreenivasan discusses some viewers' comments and questions with MacNeil.
Transcript
JEFFREY BROWN: And to viewer reaction and Robert MacNeil's response to the Autism Now series.
For that, we turn to Hari, who's joined us in the studio.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All last week, we asked you to let us know what you thought of our special series on autism. And hundreds of people left questions and concerns on our website. Many commented from Facebook accounts, sent emails, and even left voice-mails that we have read and listened to.
We said we would have Robert MacNeil back to answer some of your questions. And he joins us now from New York.
Thanks for being with us.
ROBERT MACNEIL: Thanks, Hari.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, even though we had six nights of coverage, and we saw -- seen all of these stories, what we saw in these hundreds of emails is that there are so many more stories about autism.
So, one of the first questions and concerns is how did you choose the stories that you did? And what else do you wish you could have done?
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, it's a good question.
We worked, that is, I, for about a year on my own researching, and then for six months with Caren Zucker, the producer, who herself is the mother of a son of nearly 17 with autism, and who has produced many stories on autism at her time with ABC News.
We worked to -- we thought what we should do is provide a comprehensive overview of what we saw as the pressing issues in the autism community. Now, the things we didn't cover are many. And many other stories could be done.
We didn't talk about adults living now with autism, which is a very interesting story, and what their lives are, how they work, where they live, what kind of support they need. We did concentrate on those about to become adults.
And if anybody is interested in this and wants to read the transcript of the interview with Peter Gerhardt of the McCarton School in New York who is an expert on this, it's really fascinating on what he envisions the lives of adults can be and should be.
Then, we didn't talk about autism in its contact with the criminal justice system. There are stories of people approaching adulthood who lose control of themselves and maybe physically attack someone. And some of those people get sentenced to prison terms.
We didn't talk about the odd phenomenon medicine is now investigating, which parents have noticed for years, that when children with autism develop fevers, their autism symptoms can become milder and so on.
I could go on and on. There are many other stories to do. We thought we were doing the main, urgent ones.
HARI SREENIVASAN: OK. Now, people can go on to our site and see that there's an overwhelming number of comments on there that are very supportive of the series.
Let me just read you a couple very quickly, before I get to ones that are perhaps a little bit more pointed.
Hugh Schmidt writes in, "You need to this if you have children."
And Jackie Schlegel-Polvado, who is a special-needs professional, says: "Wow. This could just as well have been my life. They touched so many important topics in such a short period."
That said, let's get to a couple of the concerns people had about your personal connection to this series. Here's one that's -- was on our website here.
It says: "I reject the personalization of the story. It diminishes the importance of the subject, since it suggests the story may only be as important because Mr. MacNeil's grandson is afflicted. This confirms the seeming reality that a disease or dysfunction is only as urgent as the celebrity who sponsors it."
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, I'm sorry he sees it that way, because I don't think I could bring very much celebrity to the issue -- to the issue.
What I tried to bring was half-a-century's experience as a journalist of telling stories. That's what I thought I brought to it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right. Now, since you also brought your family into it, it kind of opened up another line of criticism that we saw in some of the comments regarding your daughter, her opinions on autism and how that did or didn't influence you.
Here's a note that was left on our website: "He's profoundly influenced by his daughter's unsupported belief that vaccines caused little Nick's autism. It's really too bad that Robert MacNeil, in his role as a caring grandfather, chose to promote ideas that have clearly been contradicted by evidence. Nonetheless, I respect him for his efforts."
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, what I was profoundly influenced by was the pain and distress that I, over four years, saw my daughter's family experiencing because of my grandson's autism.
And I wasn't promoting anything. I was trying to be a reporter. The fact that my daughter believes what she believes about vaccines is her belief. I love her.
I think differently. I've tried to bring to bear a lot of habits learned over many years as a journalist and look at the whole thing objectively. So, when she says in the first program that's what she thought, I say immediately, yes, but medical science says that there is no evidence of such a connection. All the epidemiological studies do not prove a connection.
And, later, we have a very objective discussion of the issue in our third program, the one on causes. So, I think, if those who think that way -- the trouble with autism and the communities of autism is that a lot of them are locked into a kind of zero tolerance for any point of view that isn't precisely their own, and they sort of sit in their trenches and hurl missiles at -- at each other.
I think that it is -- it -- if the people who feel that way are fair-minded, they would go back and look at the two programs, one and three -- and they're all on the website -- that mentioned vaccines, and then read the transcripts of the people involved, including the transcript of the doctor who treats my grandson's gastrointestinal problems, Timothy Buie of Mass. General Hospital, who is -- was part of a team that attempted to replicate the findings of the now notorious British doctor Andrew Wakefield and were unable to replicate them.
So, I think we have treated it objectively, but we didn't ignore it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right.
And, finally, a process question also came through on how you chose the guests and the experts that you did.
There's a comment from John Horton, who writes in and says: "I think an adult with autism should have been included on the roundtable. They're talking about them but not to them."
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, perhaps he's right.
We tried to concentrate on what we thought were urgent issues, urgent problems. And a lot of adults with autism, particularly those who describe themselves as a kind of neurodiversity community, are high-functioning people with autism, who have busy and productive lives in the world, who serve a wonderful purpose of helping the community at large to understand and witness autism and be tolerant of it.
But they speak for themselves. And we didn't see them as an urgent issue, as urgent as the impending arrival into adulthood of hundreds of thousands of teenagers with autism.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And, finally, so many of these comments dealt with such specific questions about medication, about diet, about treatments. And some of these circumstances that people find themselves in are just heart-wrenching.
What, where, how can people get help to find the resources that can assist them?
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, I'm certainly not qualified to direct them, because I'm a journalist who studied this. I'm not an expert.
But we have set up a resource. And if people want to call, it's the Autism Response Team at Autism Speaks, the largest of the autism advocacy groups. And that number is 888-AUTISM2. And the Response Team is there on the phones to answer specific questions or direct people to the kind of services they're looking for.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right.
Robert MacNeil, many thanks for this series and for joining us today.
ROBERT MACNEIL: Hari, thank you.
HARI SREENIVASAN: As a reminder, all the episodes in the series will remain online, along with a complete list of resources to help people understand and deal with autism.
All that and more is on our website at NewsHour.PBS.org.
Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.
SUMMARY
In response to Robert MacNeil's six-part Autism Now series, the NewsHour received scores of questions, compliments and concerns via our website, social media and voicemail. Hari Sreenivasan discusses some viewers' comments and questions with MacNeil.
Transcript
JEFFREY BROWN: And to viewer reaction and Robert MacNeil's response to the Autism Now series.
For that, we turn to Hari, who's joined us in the studio.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All last week, we asked you to let us know what you thought of our special series on autism. And hundreds of people left questions and concerns on our website. Many commented from Facebook accounts, sent emails, and even left voice-mails that we have read and listened to.
We said we would have Robert MacNeil back to answer some of your questions. And he joins us now from New York.
Thanks for being with us.
ROBERT MACNEIL: Thanks, Hari.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, even though we had six nights of coverage, and we saw -- seen all of these stories, what we saw in these hundreds of emails is that there are so many more stories about autism.
So, one of the first questions and concerns is how did you choose the stories that you did? And what else do you wish you could have done?
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, it's a good question.
We worked, that is, I, for about a year on my own researching, and then for six months with Caren Zucker, the producer, who herself is the mother of a son of nearly 17 with autism, and who has produced many stories on autism at her time with ABC News.
We worked to -- we thought what we should do is provide a comprehensive overview of what we saw as the pressing issues in the autism community. Now, the things we didn't cover are many. And many other stories could be done.
We didn't talk about adults living now with autism, which is a very interesting story, and what their lives are, how they work, where they live, what kind of support they need. We did concentrate on those about to become adults.
And if anybody is interested in this and wants to read the transcript of the interview with Peter Gerhardt of the McCarton School in New York who is an expert on this, it's really fascinating on what he envisions the lives of adults can be and should be.
Then, we didn't talk about autism in its contact with the criminal justice system. There are stories of people approaching adulthood who lose control of themselves and maybe physically attack someone. And some of those people get sentenced to prison terms.
We didn't talk about the odd phenomenon medicine is now investigating, which parents have noticed for years, that when children with autism develop fevers, their autism symptoms can become milder and so on.
I could go on and on. There are many other stories to do. We thought we were doing the main, urgent ones.
HARI SREENIVASAN: OK. Now, people can go on to our site and see that there's an overwhelming number of comments on there that are very supportive of the series.
Let me just read you a couple very quickly, before I get to ones that are perhaps a little bit more pointed.
Hugh Schmidt writes in, "You need to this if you have children."
And Jackie Schlegel-Polvado, who is a special-needs professional, says: "Wow. This could just as well have been my life. They touched so many important topics in such a short period."
That said, let's get to a couple of the concerns people had about your personal connection to this series. Here's one that's -- was on our website here.
It says: "I reject the personalization of the story. It diminishes the importance of the subject, since it suggests the story may only be as important because Mr. MacNeil's grandson is afflicted. This confirms the seeming reality that a disease or dysfunction is only as urgent as the celebrity who sponsors it."
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, I'm sorry he sees it that way, because I don't think I could bring very much celebrity to the issue -- to the issue.
What I tried to bring was half-a-century's experience as a journalist of telling stories. That's what I thought I brought to it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right. Now, since you also brought your family into it, it kind of opened up another line of criticism that we saw in some of the comments regarding your daughter, her opinions on autism and how that did or didn't influence you.
Here's a note that was left on our website: "He's profoundly influenced by his daughter's unsupported belief that vaccines caused little Nick's autism. It's really too bad that Robert MacNeil, in his role as a caring grandfather, chose to promote ideas that have clearly been contradicted by evidence. Nonetheless, I respect him for his efforts."
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, what I was profoundly influenced by was the pain and distress that I, over four years, saw my daughter's family experiencing because of my grandson's autism.
And I wasn't promoting anything. I was trying to be a reporter. The fact that my daughter believes what she believes about vaccines is her belief. I love her.
I think differently. I've tried to bring to bear a lot of habits learned over many years as a journalist and look at the whole thing objectively. So, when she says in the first program that's what she thought, I say immediately, yes, but medical science says that there is no evidence of such a connection. All the epidemiological studies do not prove a connection.
And, later, we have a very objective discussion of the issue in our third program, the one on causes. So, I think, if those who think that way -- the trouble with autism and the communities of autism is that a lot of them are locked into a kind of zero tolerance for any point of view that isn't precisely their own, and they sort of sit in their trenches and hurl missiles at -- at each other.
I think that it is -- it -- if the people who feel that way are fair-minded, they would go back and look at the two programs, one and three -- and they're all on the website -- that mentioned vaccines, and then read the transcripts of the people involved, including the transcript of the doctor who treats my grandson's gastrointestinal problems, Timothy Buie of Mass. General Hospital, who is -- was part of a team that attempted to replicate the findings of the now notorious British doctor Andrew Wakefield and were unable to replicate them.
So, I think we have treated it objectively, but we didn't ignore it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right.
And, finally, a process question also came through on how you chose the guests and the experts that you did.
There's a comment from John Horton, who writes in and says: "I think an adult with autism should have been included on the roundtable. They're talking about them but not to them."
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, perhaps he's right.
We tried to concentrate on what we thought were urgent issues, urgent problems. And a lot of adults with autism, particularly those who describe themselves as a kind of neurodiversity community, are high-functioning people with autism, who have busy and productive lives in the world, who serve a wonderful purpose of helping the community at large to understand and witness autism and be tolerant of it.
But they speak for themselves. And we didn't see them as an urgent issue, as urgent as the impending arrival into adulthood of hundreds of thousands of teenagers with autism.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And, finally, so many of these comments dealt with such specific questions about medication, about diet, about treatments. And some of these circumstances that people find themselves in are just heart-wrenching.
What, where, how can people get help to find the resources that can assist them?
ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, I'm certainly not qualified to direct them, because I'm a journalist who studied this. I'm not an expert.
But we have set up a resource. And if people want to call, it's the Autism Response Team at Autism Speaks, the largest of the autism advocacy groups. And that number is 888-AUTISM2. And the Response Team is there on the phones to answer specific questions or direct people to the kind of services they're looking for.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right.
Robert MacNeil, many thanks for this series and for joining us today.
ROBERT MACNEIL: Hari, thank you.
HARI SREENIVASAN: As a reminder, all the episodes in the series will remain online, along with a complete list of resources to help people understand and deal with autism.
All that and more is on our website at NewsHour.PBS.org.
PBS Gets Earful In Response To Autism Series - April 26, 2011 - Disability Scoop
PBS Gets Earful In Response To Autism Series
By Michelle Diament
A well-known newsman whose highly publicized PBS NewsHour series this month sparked debate about the portrayal of autism in the media will respond to viewers on the program Tuesday.
Robert MacNeil returned this month to the PBS NewsHour — which he helped create in the 1970s — for the first time in more than 15 years for a six-part series on autism. Segments looked at everything from causation, treatment and prevalence to issues faced by adults with autism and MacNeil’s grandson’s personal experience with the developmental disorder.
Many praised the series for taking such a comprehensive look at autism. But not everyone was pleased with MacNeil’s reporting on the issue. In blog posts, comments and e-mails to PBS, self-advocates are chiding the veteran reporter, saying that their perspective was left out. What’s more, they are criticizing MacNeil for comments they say suggest that those with the disorder lack empathy and can be violent.
“There’s always a problem when you talk about autism and do not include autistic people in the discussion,” says Ari Ne’eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, who suggests that the series featured “dehumanizing rhetoric” and language insinuating that people with autism are “violent and that we’re a burden on society.”
Now MacNeil will respond to questions and concerns raised by viewers during a segment that will air toward the end of Tuesday’s edition of the NewsHour, according to Anne Bell, public relations manager for the show.
In a move that was planned before the series aired, Bell says that a digital correspondent for the NewsHour will pose questions to MacNeil selected from the flood of viewer responses submitted by e-mail, phone and through the show’s website.
Specifically, MacNeil will discuss his comments about the ability of individuals with autism to show empathy.
“There are a lot of issues we addressed in the series and we’re finding that the questions and concerns are just as broad and diverse,” Bell says.
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Comments (1 Response)
poobird says:
April 26, 2011 at 3:23 pm I am happy that pbs news hour portrayed autistic individuals that weren’t on the high end of the spectrum…as the mother of a moderate to low functioning 10 year old son, I am truly tired of seeing children with near normal speech and skills being represented as autistic…I wish my son were the “kind” of autistic child that Jenny McCarthy’s son is…if the public’s only autism awareness is brough about from what’s portrayed in the media, why would there be any empathy? Who would donate to autism speaks if all they see are these almost typical children?
By Michelle Diament
A well-known newsman whose highly publicized PBS NewsHour series this month sparked debate about the portrayal of autism in the media will respond to viewers on the program Tuesday.
Robert MacNeil returned this month to the PBS NewsHour — which he helped create in the 1970s — for the first time in more than 15 years for a six-part series on autism. Segments looked at everything from causation, treatment and prevalence to issues faced by adults with autism and MacNeil’s grandson’s personal experience with the developmental disorder.
Many praised the series for taking such a comprehensive look at autism. But not everyone was pleased with MacNeil’s reporting on the issue. In blog posts, comments and e-mails to PBS, self-advocates are chiding the veteran reporter, saying that their perspective was left out. What’s more, they are criticizing MacNeil for comments they say suggest that those with the disorder lack empathy and can be violent.
“There’s always a problem when you talk about autism and do not include autistic people in the discussion,” says Ari Ne’eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, who suggests that the series featured “dehumanizing rhetoric” and language insinuating that people with autism are “violent and that we’re a burden on society.”
Now MacNeil will respond to questions and concerns raised by viewers during a segment that will air toward the end of Tuesday’s edition of the NewsHour, according to Anne Bell, public relations manager for the show.
In a move that was planned before the series aired, Bell says that a digital correspondent for the NewsHour will pose questions to MacNeil selected from the flood of viewer responses submitted by e-mail, phone and through the show’s website.
Specifically, MacNeil will discuss his comments about the ability of individuals with autism to show empathy.
“There are a lot of issues we addressed in the series and we’re finding that the questions and concerns are just as broad and diverse,” Bell says.
--------------
Comments (1 Response)
poobird says:
April 26, 2011 at 3:23 pm I am happy that pbs news hour portrayed autistic individuals that weren’t on the high end of the spectrum…as the mother of a moderate to low functioning 10 year old son, I am truly tired of seeing children with near normal speech and skills being represented as autistic…I wish my son were the “kind” of autistic child that Jenny McCarthy’s son is…if the public’s only autism awareness is brough about from what’s portrayed in the media, why would there be any empathy? Who would donate to autism speaks if all they see are these almost typical children?
Canadian bureacracy ends track star with autism’s senior season - Prep Rally - from 2010...
Canadian bureacracy ends track star with autism’s senior season - Prep Rally - High School Blog - Yahoo! Sports
Two of the best prep sports stories of 2010 focused on athletes with developmental disabilities rising to inspire others with momentous touchdowns. Now a similarly special athlete in Canada is being restrained from attempting a similar feat on the track because of a bizarre bureaucratic ruling in Ontario.
According to the Globe and Mail, 19-year-old Andrew Towle, a track star for Ottawa (Ont.) Technical Learning Centre, will not be allowed to compete throughout his senior season because of a technicality which stipulates that he has been enrolled in high school for too many years. The ruling stems from Andrew being enrolled at OTLC in the 2005-06 school year, despite the fact that he didn't take a single Grade 9 level course in that entire school year.
Despite the fact that Towle was a high school student between 2005 and 2007 by technicality alone, the Ontario Federation of Secondary School Athletics ruled that his attendance in a high school building still put him in violation of the association's strict rule that limits a student athlete's eligibility to a five year span.
"Why be this inflexible and bureaucratic with something that's so important to these student competitors?" Andrew Towle's father, Jonathan Towle, told the Globe and Mail. "It's just very unfair."
While the OFSAA might have a strong case to bar Towle if he had used up a full four years of athletic eligibility, that simply isn't the case. The 19-year-old never walked on to a track until his third year at OTLC, when he showed up at a track team practice and was suddenly motivated to improve to be more competitive with his teammates.
Amazingly, Towle's improvement on the track also sparked a dramatic improvement in the classroom for the student with autism. A year after Towle's career was kick started at a random practice, the then-sophomore was winning races and finding himself well on his way to earning a spot on the OTLC honor roll.
"At my first ever practice race, I finished in last, and I told myself I got to do better," Towle told the Globe and Mail. "So I pretty much kept on going and my goal every time was to improve."
Now, the senior is being deprived not only of his personal outlet, but also a motivating factor for him to constantly improve his schoolwork, as well. One of Towle's coaches said the natural role of running makes it an ideal fit for athletes with autism.
"I'm no expert, all I can tell you is that they seem to thrive," Vince Fay, the coach of Towle's club team, Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club, told the Globe and Mail. "… Anyone who runs, you sort of go into your own world."
Another Canadian prep sports official felt that the senior provides a unique opportunity for OFSAA to re-evaluate a well intentioned eligibility rule that might need softening.
OFSAA should determine athlete eligibility on more of a case-by-case basis, according to Jim Denison, director of the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre and a professor of physical education at the University of Alberta.
"They should have some leeway to evaluate cases as opposed to a blanket five-year rule," he said. "I totally understand why they're doing it, they're trying to do their best to … create a fair advantage for everybody, so it's a difficult situation."
Two of the best prep sports stories of 2010 focused on athletes with developmental disabilities rising to inspire others with momentous touchdowns. Now a similarly special athlete in Canada is being restrained from attempting a similar feat on the track because of a bizarre bureaucratic ruling in Ontario.
According to the Globe and Mail, 19-year-old Andrew Towle, a track star for Ottawa (Ont.) Technical Learning Centre, will not be allowed to compete throughout his senior season because of a technicality which stipulates that he has been enrolled in high school for too many years. The ruling stems from Andrew being enrolled at OTLC in the 2005-06 school year, despite the fact that he didn't take a single Grade 9 level course in that entire school year.
Despite the fact that Towle was a high school student between 2005 and 2007 by technicality alone, the Ontario Federation of Secondary School Athletics ruled that his attendance in a high school building still put him in violation of the association's strict rule that limits a student athlete's eligibility to a five year span.
"Why be this inflexible and bureaucratic with something that's so important to these student competitors?" Andrew Towle's father, Jonathan Towle, told the Globe and Mail. "It's just very unfair."
While the OFSAA might have a strong case to bar Towle if he had used up a full four years of athletic eligibility, that simply isn't the case. The 19-year-old never walked on to a track until his third year at OTLC, when he showed up at a track team practice and was suddenly motivated to improve to be more competitive with his teammates.
Amazingly, Towle's improvement on the track also sparked a dramatic improvement in the classroom for the student with autism. A year after Towle's career was kick started at a random practice, the then-sophomore was winning races and finding himself well on his way to earning a spot on the OTLC honor roll.
"At my first ever practice race, I finished in last, and I told myself I got to do better," Towle told the Globe and Mail. "So I pretty much kept on going and my goal every time was to improve."
Now, the senior is being deprived not only of his personal outlet, but also a motivating factor for him to constantly improve his schoolwork, as well. One of Towle's coaches said the natural role of running makes it an ideal fit for athletes with autism.
"I'm no expert, all I can tell you is that they seem to thrive," Vince Fay, the coach of Towle's club team, Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club, told the Globe and Mail. "… Anyone who runs, you sort of go into your own world."
Another Canadian prep sports official felt that the senior provides a unique opportunity for OFSAA to re-evaluate a well intentioned eligibility rule that might need softening.
OFSAA should determine athlete eligibility on more of a case-by-case basis, according to Jim Denison, director of the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre and a professor of physical education at the University of Alberta.
"They should have some leeway to evaluate cases as opposed to a blanket five-year rule," he said. "I totally understand why they're doing it, they're trying to do their best to … create a fair advantage for everybody, so it's a difficult situation."
"Decimation" Of Human Services Seen In Illinois Gov Quinn 2012 Budget Pitch | article & Video: Progress Illinois
"Decimation" Of Human Services Seen In Quinn Budget Pitch | Progress Illinois
*Gov. Pat Quinn released his budget proposal today, which relies on cuts to human services, education, and other state programs*
A wave of anxiety about the future of services for children, the poor, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations in Illinois rippled across the state today as Gov. Pat Quinn's budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 became public.
"For me the headline is the decimation of human services," said Larry Joseph, the top budget analyst for Voices For Illinois Children. The Department of Human Service (DHS) is getting hit like "no other state agency," he said. Joseph had just started combing through the proposal but he said many social service providers could lose entire or big portions of their General Revenue Fund dollars. Addiction services, he said, is proposed for a 50 percent cut relative to the state's FY2011 budget, but that number will be 70 percent below the 2009 level.
The Illinois Alcoholism Drug Dependence Association says more than 18,928 residents of Illinois, including more than 9,800 people in Cook County, will lose assistance if the addiction service cuts are sustained.
"The programs that were hit the hardest in DHS were for the most part programs not tied to federal requirements or federal mandates," Joseph said.
Some of the biggest cuts Quinn suggests in his opening bid for the state's next budget (PDF) fall on health care spending for some of the state's poorest residents, including a reduction in Medicaid reimbursement rates by $552 million and the elimination of Illinois Cares Rx, which helps seniors and people with disabilities purchase prescriptions, to save $107 million.
The $52.7 billion spending plan also proposes slashing state support for school transportation by $95 million, eliminating a Department on Aging program that assists seniors with taxes and drug costs to realize $24 million in savings, cutting $14 million in funds for regional education offices, and a range of smaller reductions. Quinn sees future savings in school district consolidation as well.
The cuts are likely on their way in spite of the tax hike deal General Assembly Democrats struck last month; this afternoon House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) said an additional $720 million in reductions are needed. Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said the budget pitch and the cuts it foresees were predictable, given the structure of the state's tax system. "You can't lay this at the governor's feet," he said. "If you have a fiscal system that doesn't support current level of expenditures ... you've got to do something. He tried to mimimize the pain these cuts will cause. But you can't really minimize some of these cuts. They're really, really harmful." Illinois remains a relatively low-income tax state with an inefficient sales tax code, CTBA and other budget reformers have pointed out repeatedly, for years. The tax hike helped stabilize the state's fiscal outlook, but it did not resolve those two issues.
The Sargent Shriver National Center On Poverty Law President John Bouman told Progress Illinois that his initial reaction to today's news was that cuts must be balanced and shared, emphasizing that the governor and General Assembly must find ways to spare programs that prevent higher costs down the road.
A critical part of the next budget is actually a separate bill Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) has already introduced. SB 3 authorizes state government to borrow $8.75 billion and use the money to immediately pay down much of its outstanding debt to social service providers, vendors, universities, and government agencies. By skipping payments to them, state government has essentially treated such organizations as involuntary lenders, at a high cost to the state's bottom line; Quinn said today that bids come in 6 percent to 10 percent higher than normal, since vendors expect late payments as a matter of course.
Members of the Republican leadership have thus far rejected the plan, calling instead for more unspecified spending cuts. They've got enough seats in the senate to prevent the Democratic caucus from approving SB 3 outright. Quinn today called on the GOP to get on board, saying "If you don’t agree with our debt restructuring plan, tell us which programs you would eliminate to pay $8.7 billion in overdue bills today." He went on:
Uploaded by ProgressIllinois on Feb 16, 2011
Quinn did call on lawmakers to increase funding for need-based student aid and employee training in his speech today. Workers compensation reform got a brief mention. And the governor raised an interesting signal about a broader reform of the state's tax code. Take a look at this part of his speech:
Uploaded by ProgressIllinois on Feb 16, 2011
Another tax reform package, however, is likely to be subsumed by the immediate political and legislative reality of crafting a budget that relies on a borrowing plan Republicans don't support.
As the process unfolds in Springfield, groups across the state will be trying to ascertain the consequences of diminished state committments to various services.
Martire said that cutting rates for facilities serving Medicaid patients will stress the state's health care system noting that 30 percent of the current population is already uninsured or uses Medicaid to access care. Bouman predicted some medical institutions could start taking fewer Medicaid patients or simply stop accepting them altogether.
"It should be accompanied by a promise to get it back to where it was as soon as possible," he said of the reimbursement cut idea.
The Illinois Hospital Association released this statement, meanwhile, about the prospect of its member facilities getting less for taking in poorer patients:
-----
Making such deep cuts will pose serious challenges to many financially fragile hospitals, which are already struggling to survive. With hospitals being squeezed between higher costs – for labor, new technology and medical liability – and inadequate revenues during the current economic downturn, their ability to continue to perform the critical role of serving their patients and their communities will be seriously jeopardized by Medicaid rate reductions.
------
"This was to be expected, that human services would bear the brunt of budget cuts," Martire said. "There's a pretty simple reason for that. Although human services provide really critical support to the most vulnerable populations in Illinois ... they don't have universal political appeal."
*Gov. Pat Quinn released his budget proposal today, which relies on cuts to human services, education, and other state programs*
A wave of anxiety about the future of services for children, the poor, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations in Illinois rippled across the state today as Gov. Pat Quinn's budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 became public.
"For me the headline is the decimation of human services," said Larry Joseph, the top budget analyst for Voices For Illinois Children. The Department of Human Service (DHS) is getting hit like "no other state agency," he said. Joseph had just started combing through the proposal but he said many social service providers could lose entire or big portions of their General Revenue Fund dollars. Addiction services, he said, is proposed for a 50 percent cut relative to the state's FY2011 budget, but that number will be 70 percent below the 2009 level.
The Illinois Alcoholism Drug Dependence Association says more than 18,928 residents of Illinois, including more than 9,800 people in Cook County, will lose assistance if the addiction service cuts are sustained.
"The programs that were hit the hardest in DHS were for the most part programs not tied to federal requirements or federal mandates," Joseph said.
Some of the biggest cuts Quinn suggests in his opening bid for the state's next budget (PDF) fall on health care spending for some of the state's poorest residents, including a reduction in Medicaid reimbursement rates by $552 million and the elimination of Illinois Cares Rx, which helps seniors and people with disabilities purchase prescriptions, to save $107 million.
The $52.7 billion spending plan also proposes slashing state support for school transportation by $95 million, eliminating a Department on Aging program that assists seniors with taxes and drug costs to realize $24 million in savings, cutting $14 million in funds for regional education offices, and a range of smaller reductions. Quinn sees future savings in school district consolidation as well.
The cuts are likely on their way in spite of the tax hike deal General Assembly Democrats struck last month; this afternoon House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) said an additional $720 million in reductions are needed. Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said the budget pitch and the cuts it foresees were predictable, given the structure of the state's tax system. "You can't lay this at the governor's feet," he said. "If you have a fiscal system that doesn't support current level of expenditures ... you've got to do something. He tried to mimimize the pain these cuts will cause. But you can't really minimize some of these cuts. They're really, really harmful." Illinois remains a relatively low-income tax state with an inefficient sales tax code, CTBA and other budget reformers have pointed out repeatedly, for years. The tax hike helped stabilize the state's fiscal outlook, but it did not resolve those two issues.
The Sargent Shriver National Center On Poverty Law President John Bouman told Progress Illinois that his initial reaction to today's news was that cuts must be balanced and shared, emphasizing that the governor and General Assembly must find ways to spare programs that prevent higher costs down the road.
A critical part of the next budget is actually a separate bill Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) has already introduced. SB 3 authorizes state government to borrow $8.75 billion and use the money to immediately pay down much of its outstanding debt to social service providers, vendors, universities, and government agencies. By skipping payments to them, state government has essentially treated such organizations as involuntary lenders, at a high cost to the state's bottom line; Quinn said today that bids come in 6 percent to 10 percent higher than normal, since vendors expect late payments as a matter of course.
Members of the Republican leadership have thus far rejected the plan, calling instead for more unspecified spending cuts. They've got enough seats in the senate to prevent the Democratic caucus from approving SB 3 outright. Quinn today called on the GOP to get on board, saying "If you don’t agree with our debt restructuring plan, tell us which programs you would eliminate to pay $8.7 billion in overdue bills today." He went on:
Uploaded by ProgressIllinois on Feb 16, 2011
Quinn did call on lawmakers to increase funding for need-based student aid and employee training in his speech today. Workers compensation reform got a brief mention. And the governor raised an interesting signal about a broader reform of the state's tax code. Take a look at this part of his speech:
Uploaded by ProgressIllinois on Feb 16, 2011
Another tax reform package, however, is likely to be subsumed by the immediate political and legislative reality of crafting a budget that relies on a borrowing plan Republicans don't support.
As the process unfolds in Springfield, groups across the state will be trying to ascertain the consequences of diminished state committments to various services.
Martire said that cutting rates for facilities serving Medicaid patients will stress the state's health care system noting that 30 percent of the current population is already uninsured or uses Medicaid to access care. Bouman predicted some medical institutions could start taking fewer Medicaid patients or simply stop accepting them altogether.
"It should be accompanied by a promise to get it back to where it was as soon as possible," he said of the reimbursement cut idea.
The Illinois Hospital Association released this statement, meanwhile, about the prospect of its member facilities getting less for taking in poorer patients:
-----
Making such deep cuts will pose serious challenges to many financially fragile hospitals, which are already struggling to survive. With hospitals being squeezed between higher costs – for labor, new technology and medical liability – and inadequate revenues during the current economic downturn, their ability to continue to perform the critical role of serving their patients and their communities will be seriously jeopardized by Medicaid rate reductions.
------
"This was to be expected, that human services would bear the brunt of budget cuts," Martire said. "There's a pretty simple reason for that. Although human services provide really critical support to the most vulnerable populations in Illinois ... they don't have universal political appeal."
Top 10 Tips for Treating Back Pain
as posted by Time Healthland April 25 2011 -
If you're experiencing your first really bad backache, you're probably panicking a little about the pain and its implications — what if it's cancer? What if it never goes away? My first piece of advice is, relax. Low back pain is very common. About 80% of American adults will miss work at some point because of it. And most of the time, it's neither permanent nor serious: 95% of backaches go away within six weeks, with no specific treatment. Following are 10 essential things to know about dealing with a bad back.
By Dr. Scott Haig Monday, April 25, 2011
1. Prevent or Treat Spasm First
Being anxious or stressed out about back pain — or stressed out in general — will increase your chances of muscle spasm, which is itself both a source of back pain and an amplifier of other sources of pain. In addition to psychological stress, caffeine, dehydration, lack of sleep and low sodium are also likely to increase spasm and cramping.
What does spasm feel like? When you're bent over to one side and just can't straighten up, that's typically muscle spasm. The "stiff back" that hurts more than usual is also likely to be the result of spasm. Your first order of business should be rest and heat, but read on for some other clever physical maneuvers that can be effective for both back pain and muscle spasm.
2. Listen to Your Body
If you know it's going to hurt to try to move that refrigerator right now, don't do it. Your pain will not lessen or recede any faster if you ignore it and fight your way through. Forcing yourself to bend, twist or lift makes things worse.
Take it easy when your back hurts. Sit or sleep in the most comfortable position you can find. In most cases this means lying on your back with three or more pillows under your legs so that the hips and knees are both flexed 80 to 90 degrees.
Walking can be pretty painful early on, so avoid it at first. As the pain subsides and you straighten, going for a walk — with nothing in your hands, feet pointing straight, head up — is usually beneficial.
Listen for danger signals from your body as well. Electrical pains radiating down your legs; numbness or weakness in the lower extremities or crotch; or any loss of bowel or bladder control mean its time to seek out a doctor. If so, skip ahead to Tip No. 5, and make the phone call.
3. Rest & Exercise
Rest, anti-inflammatory pain medicines like ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve) or acetaminophen (Tylenol), and a few days time will resolve many backaches. Applying heat or cold on the back relieves some patients' pain. In the hot-versus-cold debate, I've had an equal number of patients benefit from one but not the other. (Sorry, there is no official medical answer.)
Stretches and exercises to relieve low back pain — the kind you read about in self-help books and magazines — can be great or terrible, depending on the exercise and what's causing the pain. If you're doing this on your own, it makes sense to play the odds when it comes to these therapeutic maneuvers. For safety and effectiveness I can recommend only two: see Tip No. 4, next.
4. Stretches: The 90-90 and the Belly Hang
When it comes to stretches, my best advice for the most common, "generic" backache is the "90-90" position: lying on the floor with your calves flat on a chair or other horizontal surface, hips at 90 degrees to your body, knees flopped comfortably apart till you are not using any muscle force to stay there. The idea is to rest your spinal muscles and hip flexors completely. With the small of the back flat on the floor, thighs roughly vertical and calves horizontal, the back muscles that have been straining all day to prevent painful motion can relax. A tall person needs some flat cushions to make the chair higher, a shorter person needs a lower chair — like the seating surface of a couch. A sturdy box of just the right height, covered with a blanket works well too. Arms should rest comfortably out to the sides, head flat on the floor. Once you settle in and get relaxed, stay in that position for 15 minutes. This breaks spasm in some muscles, opens up the nerve spaces and evens out the forces across the small joints of spine. If it feels good and gives any relief the first time you try it, continue to do it three times a day.
The other reliable maneuver is a belly hang. Do this when you feel "crooked," or if the pain is radiating into your buttocks. Go down on hands and knees, straighten your elbows and rock forward till your shoulders are over your wrists. Hang your head down and just let your belly hang loosely, as far down as it will go. Stay there for five minutes. This is a lumbar-extension maneuver, sort of the opposite of the 90-90. It is good for breaking painful contraction and spasm in the spinal extensor muscles. Those "backstraps" — the muscles that extend or "bend back" the spine — get a strong signal to shut off when the spine is being bent back already, which is what happens when you do the belly hang. It may also help massage a bulging disc back into place.
5. Know When to Seek Help
a. Insurance. Your policy probably won't pay for massage, postural therapies or acupuncture. It might pay for some physical therapy, except with a huge enough co-pay that you'll end up basically paying for it yourself. You might also have a high deductible, which again increases your out-of-pocket cost.
Further, HMOs usually make you see an internist or family doctor before you see a therapist or specialist. That means you'll have to make an appointment with your primary care physician first, wait for that, then make an appointment with the physiatrist or orthopedist he or she recommends, and wait for that. (See how it works? You have a pretty good chance of getting better by yourself in that time.)
HMOs typically pay very little toward chiropractic care, which — apologies, colleagues — is often an excellent, efficient way to get rid of a backache.
b. Severity. If you are utterly debilitated by your back pain, you need to see a medical doctor who can prescribe drugs. However, it is not recommended to take narcotics for low back pain for a host of reasons, the most important of which is that the drugs can and usually will make the pain worse if you stay on them for more than a couple of weeks. But if you need drugs, you do need to see a physician — who I hope will have the sense to use every means possible to get you off painkillers as soon as possible.
c. Risk. Yes, some backaches are caused by things that can kill you: an aneurysm, cancer, spinal infection, even kidney problems can present as back pain. M.D.'s are trained to watch out for these.
What are the common signs that something rare and risky may be causing your backache? Ask yourself: is it the same old backache you get every time you shovel the walk? Probably not risky. Does the pain get worse at night in bed, boring in like a toothache? That could be cancer or an infection. Weight loss and fever along with the bad back are very bad signs too. Is the pain sudden and severe, ripping down your back or into the groin? It could be aneurysm or kidney stone. This last scenario is one of the few back pain emergencies — go straight to the emergency department with this.
6. Who Treats Back Pain?
There is no shortage of health-care providers who treat back pain. Below is a partial rundown of who does what.
Doctors are divided into M.D.'s, who graduated from a traditional medical school, and D.O.'s (doctor of osteopathic medicine), who have pretty similar educational backgrounds, except with training in "osteopathic manipulation," which can be a quick, easy and safe way to decrease your back pain. Problem is, most D.O.'s don't actually practice much osteopathy with manipulation. They are under the same rules and financial pressures as M.D.'s, so they're likely to do what most M.D.'s will do: write you a prescription and send you to see someone else.
Orthopedic surgeons end up seeing bad backs a lot and they will usually give you sound advice on what to do. Most of us don't really specialize in low back pain, however; our focus is on surgery of other joints.
There are both orthopedic and neurosurgeons who call themselves "spine surgeons," but curiously, few of these docs want to see patients with low back pain — at least not right off the bat. Many in my area will not even give an appointment to a patient unless he or she has already had an MRI, which means they have to have seen some other doctor first.
About 1 patient in 50 with a backache actually needs an operation, and you should not be thinking about spine surgery for your pain unless at least one, or better two, qualified doctors have recommended it. Unless you have already had a back operation in the past, you probably should call someone other than a spine surgeon when your back hurts.
Neurologists end up seeing a good bit of back pain. Of the docs who treat low backs, they are typically the most likely to use oral steroids, which can be effective — but there are some scary side effects. If the pain is greater in your legs than your back (a condition known as sciatica), or if you have numbness or weakness in your legs or feet, seeking a neurologist's care is a good bet.
A physiatrist is, overall, the most appropriate doc to see for back pain. Physiatrists do everything but operate, and their training is largely in what you need: the diagnosis and treatment of bad backs. They like to do spinal injections; they almost always order physical therapy; they often use oral medications. Physiatrists comprise a varied bunch however, so you would be wise to get a recommendation from a doctor who has previously referred patients with good results.
Generalists in medicine, like family practitioners, internists and emergency room doctors, see a lot of back pain patients. They can prescribe all the appropriate tests and medications as well as physical therapy — but they are not likely to direct your physical therapy like an orthopedist or physiatrist would (the good news is that physical therapists usually do a pretty good job of deciding your treatment on their own). General practitioners vary a lot in terms of how involved they get with a low back pain case, but the internist is my second pick (after physiatrist) for the doctor to see first with a backache.
7. Chiropractors Versus Physical Therapists
Chiropractors are called "doctor" — though many of us who have actually struggled through medical school bristle at this. Like M.D.'s, some are honest, some are crooks. Chiropractic theory itself is, well, a little smoky. But a chiropractor's manipulative treatments, if applied with an earnest desire to reduce pain, often provide relief (albeit temporarily) for backache. I have gone to a chiro myself on more than one occasion and his treatment definitely took the edge off my pain for the rest of the day.
Physical therapists have to complete four years of legitimate and pretty hard postgraduate study to put R.P.T. (registered physical therapist) after their names. In some states, you need a referral from a doctor to see a physical therapist; in others, you can go directly to a P.T. for diagnosis and treatment of back pain. P.T.'s use a wide range of treatments, but I have hardly ever seen them use chiropractic manipulations, even though they're qualified to do them.
All kinds of semi-scientific studies have been done comparing chiropractic treatments to physical therapy; my unscientific meta-analysis of these has the chiros ahead by a nose. But to whom do my colleagues in orthopedics and I send back-pain patients most frequently? To physical therapists. In fact, physical therapy is the most common treatment used for backaches in my practice, the payment issues mentioned in Tip. No. 5 notwthstanding. Why? Patient acceptance, and the fact that P.T.'s are much more consistent than chiros in how they treat.
8. What Is Traction?
Traction is a well-recognized and traditional form of physical treatment that helps many patients. It's not such an easy problem applying longitudinal force to a human's lower half; the spinal decompression DRX machine and other computer-controlled traction machines do it as well as any method I have seen. But these machines are expensive and highly marketed devices that are owned and operated by M.D.'s and chiropractors. Try to strike a deal for the treatments if you choose them; there are a lot of options in most markets these days and prices are coming down (remember how much Lasik used to cost?). And don't get swept up by traction-machine infomercials. Traction is good, but not a miracle.
9. What About Postural Therapy?
Folks with a backache often believe that their bodies are somehow "out of alignment." Given how often a little twist or pull can suddenly make agonizing back pain disappear, people commonly think it's a posture problem that caused the bad back in the first place. Whether or not that's true, postural treatments appear to work in 50% to 60% of the back pain patients I see.
There are many practitioners who have written about and offer posture-based diagnosis and treatment, but the method that has been most thoroughly developed and widely used is Egoscue, which has been effective for quite a few of my patients. Egoscue therapies also intrinsically emphasize things you should do even after your pain goes away — to reduce undue back strain. The postural-theory industry being deeply entrenched, it should come as no surprise that postural therapies require a significant commitment of time, effort and, often, dollars to work.
10. Acupuncture and Massage
A 2007 study showed that acupuncture was much more effective than P.T. for backache — and that sham acupuncture was as effective as the real thing. Needles stuck into patients by a trained and licensed acupuncturist were just as likely to ease pain as needles put in random spots by untrained workers. Another study in 2009 found that poking people with toothpicks in standard acupuncture spots helped back patients just as much as using real acupuncture needles — and both treatments worked better than standard care.
What does this mean? That the benefits of acupuncture are likely at least partly attributable to the placebo effect. Not that there's anything wrong with that — but it's up to you whether you're a believer. The placebo effect appears to be stronger when the sham treatment is painful and invasive ("This has got to work — see how much it hurts!"), so dummy needles should work better than dummy pills. But given that acupuncture is quite safe, as long as needles are clean, if it appeals to you, you should try it.
Acupuncture hasn't made it to the mainstream yet, but in 2008, experts from the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society did sanction it, recommending that clinicians consider acupuncture for the treatment of back pain in sufferers who don't respond to self-care.
Many patients also find massage pleasurable and helpful for a bad back. All the endorphins it releases are probably a natural pain reliever. But as with acupuncture, many insurance plans won't pay for massage — not even if you get your doctor to write a prescription for it. Still, many people say it's worth the money.
All of these are mostly imperfect choices for dealing with a backache, a problem that is often humbling for the patient and doctor alike — one that reminds us of the often limited value of science and reason in dealing with the painful aspects of our human condition
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/10-tips-for-treating-back-pain/#ixzz1KdO3c1G7
If you're experiencing your first really bad backache, you're probably panicking a little about the pain and its implications — what if it's cancer? What if it never goes away? My first piece of advice is, relax. Low back pain is very common. About 80% of American adults will miss work at some point because of it. And most of the time, it's neither permanent nor serious: 95% of backaches go away within six weeks, with no specific treatment. Following are 10 essential things to know about dealing with a bad back.
By Dr. Scott Haig Monday, April 25, 2011
1. Prevent or Treat Spasm First
Being anxious or stressed out about back pain — or stressed out in general — will increase your chances of muscle spasm, which is itself both a source of back pain and an amplifier of other sources of pain. In addition to psychological stress, caffeine, dehydration, lack of sleep and low sodium are also likely to increase spasm and cramping.
What does spasm feel like? When you're bent over to one side and just can't straighten up, that's typically muscle spasm. The "stiff back" that hurts more than usual is also likely to be the result of spasm. Your first order of business should be rest and heat, but read on for some other clever physical maneuvers that can be effective for both back pain and muscle spasm.
2. Listen to Your Body
If you know it's going to hurt to try to move that refrigerator right now, don't do it. Your pain will not lessen or recede any faster if you ignore it and fight your way through. Forcing yourself to bend, twist or lift makes things worse.
Take it easy when your back hurts. Sit or sleep in the most comfortable position you can find. In most cases this means lying on your back with three or more pillows under your legs so that the hips and knees are both flexed 80 to 90 degrees.
Walking can be pretty painful early on, so avoid it at first. As the pain subsides and you straighten, going for a walk — with nothing in your hands, feet pointing straight, head up — is usually beneficial.
Listen for danger signals from your body as well. Electrical pains radiating down your legs; numbness or weakness in the lower extremities or crotch; or any loss of bowel or bladder control mean its time to seek out a doctor. If so, skip ahead to Tip No. 5, and make the phone call.
3. Rest & Exercise
Rest, anti-inflammatory pain medicines like ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve) or acetaminophen (Tylenol), and a few days time will resolve many backaches. Applying heat or cold on the back relieves some patients' pain. In the hot-versus-cold debate, I've had an equal number of patients benefit from one but not the other. (Sorry, there is no official medical answer.)
Stretches and exercises to relieve low back pain — the kind you read about in self-help books and magazines — can be great or terrible, depending on the exercise and what's causing the pain. If you're doing this on your own, it makes sense to play the odds when it comes to these therapeutic maneuvers. For safety and effectiveness I can recommend only two: see Tip No. 4, next.
4. Stretches: The 90-90 and the Belly Hang
When it comes to stretches, my best advice for the most common, "generic" backache is the "90-90" position: lying on the floor with your calves flat on a chair or other horizontal surface, hips at 90 degrees to your body, knees flopped comfortably apart till you are not using any muscle force to stay there. The idea is to rest your spinal muscles and hip flexors completely. With the small of the back flat on the floor, thighs roughly vertical and calves horizontal, the back muscles that have been straining all day to prevent painful motion can relax. A tall person needs some flat cushions to make the chair higher, a shorter person needs a lower chair — like the seating surface of a couch. A sturdy box of just the right height, covered with a blanket works well too. Arms should rest comfortably out to the sides, head flat on the floor. Once you settle in and get relaxed, stay in that position for 15 minutes. This breaks spasm in some muscles, opens up the nerve spaces and evens out the forces across the small joints of spine. If it feels good and gives any relief the first time you try it, continue to do it three times a day.
The other reliable maneuver is a belly hang. Do this when you feel "crooked," or if the pain is radiating into your buttocks. Go down on hands and knees, straighten your elbows and rock forward till your shoulders are over your wrists. Hang your head down and just let your belly hang loosely, as far down as it will go. Stay there for five minutes. This is a lumbar-extension maneuver, sort of the opposite of the 90-90. It is good for breaking painful contraction and spasm in the spinal extensor muscles. Those "backstraps" — the muscles that extend or "bend back" the spine — get a strong signal to shut off when the spine is being bent back already, which is what happens when you do the belly hang. It may also help massage a bulging disc back into place.
5. Know When to Seek Help
a. Insurance. Your policy probably won't pay for massage, postural therapies or acupuncture. It might pay for some physical therapy, except with a huge enough co-pay that you'll end up basically paying for it yourself. You might also have a high deductible, which again increases your out-of-pocket cost.
Further, HMOs usually make you see an internist or family doctor before you see a therapist or specialist. That means you'll have to make an appointment with your primary care physician first, wait for that, then make an appointment with the physiatrist or orthopedist he or she recommends, and wait for that. (See how it works? You have a pretty good chance of getting better by yourself in that time.)
HMOs typically pay very little toward chiropractic care, which — apologies, colleagues — is often an excellent, efficient way to get rid of a backache.
b. Severity. If you are utterly debilitated by your back pain, you need to see a medical doctor who can prescribe drugs. However, it is not recommended to take narcotics for low back pain for a host of reasons, the most important of which is that the drugs can and usually will make the pain worse if you stay on them for more than a couple of weeks. But if you need drugs, you do need to see a physician — who I hope will have the sense to use every means possible to get you off painkillers as soon as possible.
c. Risk. Yes, some backaches are caused by things that can kill you: an aneurysm, cancer, spinal infection, even kidney problems can present as back pain. M.D.'s are trained to watch out for these.
What are the common signs that something rare and risky may be causing your backache? Ask yourself: is it the same old backache you get every time you shovel the walk? Probably not risky. Does the pain get worse at night in bed, boring in like a toothache? That could be cancer or an infection. Weight loss and fever along with the bad back are very bad signs too. Is the pain sudden and severe, ripping down your back or into the groin? It could be aneurysm or kidney stone. This last scenario is one of the few back pain emergencies — go straight to the emergency department with this.
6. Who Treats Back Pain?
There is no shortage of health-care providers who treat back pain. Below is a partial rundown of who does what.
Doctors are divided into M.D.'s, who graduated from a traditional medical school, and D.O.'s (doctor of osteopathic medicine), who have pretty similar educational backgrounds, except with training in "osteopathic manipulation," which can be a quick, easy and safe way to decrease your back pain. Problem is, most D.O.'s don't actually practice much osteopathy with manipulation. They are under the same rules and financial pressures as M.D.'s, so they're likely to do what most M.D.'s will do: write you a prescription and send you to see someone else.
Orthopedic surgeons end up seeing bad backs a lot and they will usually give you sound advice on what to do. Most of us don't really specialize in low back pain, however; our focus is on surgery of other joints.
There are both orthopedic and neurosurgeons who call themselves "spine surgeons," but curiously, few of these docs want to see patients with low back pain — at least not right off the bat. Many in my area will not even give an appointment to a patient unless he or she has already had an MRI, which means they have to have seen some other doctor first.
About 1 patient in 50 with a backache actually needs an operation, and you should not be thinking about spine surgery for your pain unless at least one, or better two, qualified doctors have recommended it. Unless you have already had a back operation in the past, you probably should call someone other than a spine surgeon when your back hurts.
Neurologists end up seeing a good bit of back pain. Of the docs who treat low backs, they are typically the most likely to use oral steroids, which can be effective — but there are some scary side effects. If the pain is greater in your legs than your back (a condition known as sciatica), or if you have numbness or weakness in your legs or feet, seeking a neurologist's care is a good bet.
A physiatrist is, overall, the most appropriate doc to see for back pain. Physiatrists do everything but operate, and their training is largely in what you need: the diagnosis and treatment of bad backs. They like to do spinal injections; they almost always order physical therapy; they often use oral medications. Physiatrists comprise a varied bunch however, so you would be wise to get a recommendation from a doctor who has previously referred patients with good results.
Generalists in medicine, like family practitioners, internists and emergency room doctors, see a lot of back pain patients. They can prescribe all the appropriate tests and medications as well as physical therapy — but they are not likely to direct your physical therapy like an orthopedist or physiatrist would (the good news is that physical therapists usually do a pretty good job of deciding your treatment on their own). General practitioners vary a lot in terms of how involved they get with a low back pain case, but the internist is my second pick (after physiatrist) for the doctor to see first with a backache.
7. Chiropractors Versus Physical Therapists
Chiropractors are called "doctor" — though many of us who have actually struggled through medical school bristle at this. Like M.D.'s, some are honest, some are crooks. Chiropractic theory itself is, well, a little smoky. But a chiropractor's manipulative treatments, if applied with an earnest desire to reduce pain, often provide relief (albeit temporarily) for backache. I have gone to a chiro myself on more than one occasion and his treatment definitely took the edge off my pain for the rest of the day.
Physical therapists have to complete four years of legitimate and pretty hard postgraduate study to put R.P.T. (registered physical therapist) after their names. In some states, you need a referral from a doctor to see a physical therapist; in others, you can go directly to a P.T. for diagnosis and treatment of back pain. P.T.'s use a wide range of treatments, but I have hardly ever seen them use chiropractic manipulations, even though they're qualified to do them.
All kinds of semi-scientific studies have been done comparing chiropractic treatments to physical therapy; my unscientific meta-analysis of these has the chiros ahead by a nose. But to whom do my colleagues in orthopedics and I send back-pain patients most frequently? To physical therapists. In fact, physical therapy is the most common treatment used for backaches in my practice, the payment issues mentioned in Tip. No. 5 notwthstanding. Why? Patient acceptance, and the fact that P.T.'s are much more consistent than chiros in how they treat.
8. What Is Traction?
Traction is a well-recognized and traditional form of physical treatment that helps many patients. It's not such an easy problem applying longitudinal force to a human's lower half; the spinal decompression DRX machine and other computer-controlled traction machines do it as well as any method I have seen. But these machines are expensive and highly marketed devices that are owned and operated by M.D.'s and chiropractors. Try to strike a deal for the treatments if you choose them; there are a lot of options in most markets these days and prices are coming down (remember how much Lasik used to cost?). And don't get swept up by traction-machine infomercials. Traction is good, but not a miracle.
9. What About Postural Therapy?
Folks with a backache often believe that their bodies are somehow "out of alignment." Given how often a little twist or pull can suddenly make agonizing back pain disappear, people commonly think it's a posture problem that caused the bad back in the first place. Whether or not that's true, postural treatments appear to work in 50% to 60% of the back pain patients I see.
There are many practitioners who have written about and offer posture-based diagnosis and treatment, but the method that has been most thoroughly developed and widely used is Egoscue, which has been effective for quite a few of my patients. Egoscue therapies also intrinsically emphasize things you should do even after your pain goes away — to reduce undue back strain. The postural-theory industry being deeply entrenched, it should come as no surprise that postural therapies require a significant commitment of time, effort and, often, dollars to work.
10. Acupuncture and Massage
A 2007 study showed that acupuncture was much more effective than P.T. for backache — and that sham acupuncture was as effective as the real thing. Needles stuck into patients by a trained and licensed acupuncturist were just as likely to ease pain as needles put in random spots by untrained workers. Another study in 2009 found that poking people with toothpicks in standard acupuncture spots helped back patients just as much as using real acupuncture needles — and both treatments worked better than standard care.
What does this mean? That the benefits of acupuncture are likely at least partly attributable to the placebo effect. Not that there's anything wrong with that — but it's up to you whether you're a believer. The placebo effect appears to be stronger when the sham treatment is painful and invasive ("This has got to work — see how much it hurts!"), so dummy needles should work better than dummy pills. But given that acupuncture is quite safe, as long as needles are clean, if it appeals to you, you should try it.
Acupuncture hasn't made it to the mainstream yet, but in 2008, experts from the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society did sanction it, recommending that clinicians consider acupuncture for the treatment of back pain in sufferers who don't respond to self-care.
Many patients also find massage pleasurable and helpful for a bad back. All the endorphins it releases are probably a natural pain reliever. But as with acupuncture, many insurance plans won't pay for massage — not even if you get your doctor to write a prescription for it. Still, many people say it's worth the money.
All of these are mostly imperfect choices for dealing with a backache, a problem that is often humbling for the patient and doctor alike — one that reminds us of the often limited value of science and reason in dealing with the painful aspects of our human condition
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/10-tips-for-treating-back-pain/#ixzz1KdO3c1G7
Mom says disabled child denied first communion -article & video - April 23 2011 - Kcentv.com - Kcen HD - Waco, Temple and Killeen
Mom says disabled child denied first communion - Kcentv.com - Kcen HD - Waco, Temple and Killeen
The Easter season is a time for religious reflection, but one Texas family says their faith is being tested.
This, after the pastor of their church refused to give first communion to a member of the family who has cerebral palsy.
It was a religious milestone Irma Castro spent months preparing their grandson Kevin for, but when it came time for his first communion, he was denied.
"It hurts and I think it's a form of discrimination," Castro said.
Castro was told by Pastor, Father Phil Henning, with the Sacred Heart Catholic Church of Floresvile, that because Kevin had cerebral palsy and has the mental capacity of a 6-month-old, he didn't qualify to receive his first communion.
"He said because he was not able to understand the meaning of receiving the body of Christ," Castro said.
Canon law requires that a child receiving Holy Communion have "sufficient knowledge" of Christ, but it doesn't define what level of knowledge is considered sufficient.
Deacon Pat Rodgers, with the Archdiocese of San Antonio, said oftentimes the decision lies with the pastor.
"It's never our desire, hope or wish to withhold a sacrament from someone who wants or needs it," Rodgers said.
Castro said this doesn't just make her question her pastor, it makes her question her faith.
The Easter season is a time for religious reflection, but one Texas family says their faith is being tested.
This, after the pastor of their church refused to give first communion to a member of the family who has cerebral palsy.
It was a religious milestone Irma Castro spent months preparing their grandson Kevin for, but when it came time for his first communion, he was denied.
"It hurts and I think it's a form of discrimination," Castro said.
Castro was told by Pastor, Father Phil Henning, with the Sacred Heart Catholic Church of Floresvile, that because Kevin had cerebral palsy and has the mental capacity of a 6-month-old, he didn't qualify to receive his first communion.
"He said because he was not able to understand the meaning of receiving the body of Christ," Castro said.
Canon law requires that a child receiving Holy Communion have "sufficient knowledge" of Christ, but it doesn't define what level of knowledge is considered sufficient.
Deacon Pat Rodgers, with the Archdiocese of San Antonio, said oftentimes the decision lies with the pastor.
"It's never our desire, hope or wish to withhold a sacrament from someone who wants or needs it," Rodgers said.
Castro said this doesn't just make her question her pastor, it makes her question her faith.
Medical pot prescribed mostly for aches, pains - Apr 21, 2011 - Detroit Free Press
It's not cancer or Alzheimer's or glaucoma that had droves of Michiganders going to doctors over the past two years to get certified to use medical marijuana.
The vast majority of about 64,000 people authorized to use marijuana as medicine have unspecified ailments that cause severe and chronic pain, muscle spasms and nausea, state data obtained by the Free Press show.
And just 55 doctors certified about 45,000 patients -- 71% of all the authorized medical pot users.
In all, 2,197 doctors wrote at least one certification for a patient asking for marijuana approval.
The Michigan Department of Community Health data, obtained by the Free Press, is the first peek at what has happened under the state's new medical marijuana law.
The top nonspecific ailments cited by medical marijuana patients were severe and chronic pain, muscle spasms and nausea.
Of specific diseases, cancer was the most cited. It was given as a reason for certification by 1,407 patients (2.2%).
The numbers come from a broader report the department compiled on the medical marijuana law that is expected to be released within days.
Opponents: Pot law being exploited
Advocates and opponents of medical marijuana had very different views of the first snapshot showing how patients and doctors are responding to Michigan's 2-year-old law permitting pot's use as a painkiller.
Attorney General Bill Schuette, who led the opposition to the voter-passed ballot proposal in 2008, said: "This is just what we predicted. It is totally out of control."
He responded when a reporter informed him that most certifications under the law were for chronic pain, not specific illnesses and that 55 doctors were writing most of the prescriptions in Michigan.
"We were told (medical marijuana) was designed to treat a very narrow set of ... chronic and severe illnesses," Schuette said, "and what's going on is that this poorly drafted law is being exploited by those who want to legalize marijuana or make money ... or by unscrupulous doctors."
Karen O'Keefe of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, which helped draft the legislation that was overwhelmingly approved by voters, strongly disagreed.
Chronic and severe pain is a serious medical condition, one that results in millions of Americans seeking medical treatment and receiving prescription painkillers, O'Keefe said.
"It is absolutely unfair to suggest that severe pain is not a serious condition," she said.
O'Keefe said the campaign for Proposal 1 in 2008 also was transparent about the range of conditions, both specific and general, that could justify medical marijuana use.
"We never said it was just cancer," she said.
Rob Mullen, a Farmington Hills attorney involved in multiple medical marijuana-related prosecutions, said he is convinced there are a lot of recreational pot smokers who have obtained Michigan medical marijuana certificates, and there are certainly physicians who see a huge volume of medical marijuana patients.
But that doesn't necessarily signify abuse of the law, Mullen said. Some doctors are turning to marijuana as a relatively less risky treatment for patients who might otherwise become addicted to or overdose on prescription painkillers, he said.
Mullen said he is concerned the interests of legitimate medical marijuana patients are in danger of being obscured or overwhelmed by the confusion and conflict created by overly zealous law enforcement authorities on one side, and the pro-legalization and commercial factions on the other.
Kelly Niebel, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Community Health, declined to comment on what, if any, conclusions the department has drawn from the data. In fact, the MDCH will no longer be the regulatory agency after this weekend, Niebel said.
Under a reorganization ordered by Gov. Rick Snyder, processing of medical marijuana certification will move to the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.
"They are aware there are some outstanding issues, and they will be looking into them," Niebel said. "We're all committed to administering the law within the scope that was intended by those who voted for it."
Russ Westbury, a partner in the Ann Arbor Medical Clinic, which deals exclusively in marijuana referrals, said he wasn't surprised that some doctors specialize in medical marijuana referrals.
"Some have made it their primary focus," Westbury said. "The doctors that we have, they believe in it" as a less-addictive alternative to pain relief than some prescription medicines.
He said he uses marijuana for back pain and he's not unusual -- something the state data confirms.
"Of course, chronic pain is the most frequent, because there are so many people affected by that," he said.
He estimates he spends about $25 a month for marijuana, and uses it mostly at night when he's trying to get to sleep. He has known others who consume hundreds of dollars of pot weekly.
The vast majority of about 64,000 people authorized to use marijuana as medicine have unspecified ailments that cause severe and chronic pain, muscle spasms and nausea, state data obtained by the Free Press show.
And just 55 doctors certified about 45,000 patients -- 71% of all the authorized medical pot users.
In all, 2,197 doctors wrote at least one certification for a patient asking for marijuana approval.
The Michigan Department of Community Health data, obtained by the Free Press, is the first peek at what has happened under the state's new medical marijuana law.
The top nonspecific ailments cited by medical marijuana patients were severe and chronic pain, muscle spasms and nausea.
Of specific diseases, cancer was the most cited. It was given as a reason for certification by 1,407 patients (2.2%).
The numbers come from a broader report the department compiled on the medical marijuana law that is expected to be released within days.
Opponents: Pot law being exploited
Advocates and opponents of medical marijuana had very different views of the first snapshot showing how patients and doctors are responding to Michigan's 2-year-old law permitting pot's use as a painkiller.
Attorney General Bill Schuette, who led the opposition to the voter-passed ballot proposal in 2008, said: "This is just what we predicted. It is totally out of control."
He responded when a reporter informed him that most certifications under the law were for chronic pain, not specific illnesses and that 55 doctors were writing most of the prescriptions in Michigan.
"We were told (medical marijuana) was designed to treat a very narrow set of ... chronic and severe illnesses," Schuette said, "and what's going on is that this poorly drafted law is being exploited by those who want to legalize marijuana or make money ... or by unscrupulous doctors."
Karen O'Keefe of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, which helped draft the legislation that was overwhelmingly approved by voters, strongly disagreed.
Chronic and severe pain is a serious medical condition, one that results in millions of Americans seeking medical treatment and receiving prescription painkillers, O'Keefe said.
"It is absolutely unfair to suggest that severe pain is not a serious condition," she said.
O'Keefe said the campaign for Proposal 1 in 2008 also was transparent about the range of conditions, both specific and general, that could justify medical marijuana use.
"We never said it was just cancer," she said.
Rob Mullen, a Farmington Hills attorney involved in multiple medical marijuana-related prosecutions, said he is convinced there are a lot of recreational pot smokers who have obtained Michigan medical marijuana certificates, and there are certainly physicians who see a huge volume of medical marijuana patients.
But that doesn't necessarily signify abuse of the law, Mullen said. Some doctors are turning to marijuana as a relatively less risky treatment for patients who might otherwise become addicted to or overdose on prescription painkillers, he said.
Mullen said he is concerned the interests of legitimate medical marijuana patients are in danger of being obscured or overwhelmed by the confusion and conflict created by overly zealous law enforcement authorities on one side, and the pro-legalization and commercial factions on the other.
Kelly Niebel, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Community Health, declined to comment on what, if any, conclusions the department has drawn from the data. In fact, the MDCH will no longer be the regulatory agency after this weekend, Niebel said.
Under a reorganization ordered by Gov. Rick Snyder, processing of medical marijuana certification will move to the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.
"They are aware there are some outstanding issues, and they will be looking into them," Niebel said. "We're all committed to administering the law within the scope that was intended by those who voted for it."
Russ Westbury, a partner in the Ann Arbor Medical Clinic, which deals exclusively in marijuana referrals, said he wasn't surprised that some doctors specialize in medical marijuana referrals.
"Some have made it their primary focus," Westbury said. "The doctors that we have, they believe in it" as a less-addictive alternative to pain relief than some prescription medicines.
He said he uses marijuana for back pain and he's not unusual -- something the state data confirms.
"Of course, chronic pain is the most frequent, because there are so many people affected by that," he said.
He estimates he spends about $25 a month for marijuana, and uses it mostly at night when he's trying to get to sleep. He has known others who consume hundreds of dollars of pot weekly.
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