Kareem Dale says Obama adminstration working toward integration, inclusion for people with disabilities

From Penny Reeder at GettingHired.com:

On the morning of March 31, President Obama's Special Assistant for Disability Policy, Kareem Dale, spoke at the National Council on Disability's (NCD) annual meeting in Washington, DC, about the Administration's progress toward meeting the needs, and measuring up to the expectations of the community of people with disabilities, their advocates and supporters.

Mr. Dale, who pointed out, several times during the course of his remarks that the Obama Administration has been on the job for only 60 days since the president took office on January 20, said that people with disabilities have already been included in government programs and White House meetings in record numbers, and he urged the community of people with disabilities to be patient, and to view the glass as half full, and filling.

Dale described his duties at the White House as public liaison and domestic policy counsel. He said that the President has already begun to implement an aggressive agenda to meet the needs of people with disabilities, that surpasses the plan which he outlined during the campaign. He said that the Obama administration is committed to enforcing and fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), to enforcing and funding "No Child Left Behind," to special education and to education in general.

"We have a commitment," he said, "To making sure that kids stay in school, that they get the services they need, that they graduate, and when they graduate, they will have jobs and decent salaries"

Dale said, "In the first 60 days, we have already begun to accomplish what we said we would. This has been an unbelievable experience."

Dale said that the administration is well aware of the needs of people with disabilities, for employment, integration and inclusion. He said that the White House is providing a model for the federal government and employers in the private sector, as well, by having already hired three people with disabilities to carry out and work on policy issues related to meeting the needs of people with disabilities.

Dale, who worked prior to the campaign as an attorney in Chicago, and who is blind, noted that there has never before been a person who is blind who received a White House appointment at the level of special assistant or director.

In addition, Dale praised the nomination of Kathy Martinez, who is blind, for Director at the Office of Disability Employment Policy in the Department of Labor, and Seth Harris, a Senior Fellow of the Life Without Limits Project of the United Cerebral Palsy Association and a member of the National Advisory Commission on Workplace Flexibility for Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor.

Dale said, "Our team is starting to come into place. Be patient. We can't do everything in the first 60 days, but we are working on it, we know about it, and we are moving forward."

He said that the Obama Administration has three major goals for people with disabilities: Integration, inclusion, and not to be siloed out.

Dale said that in the first two months, the Obama Administration has included people with disabilities at every public event held at the White House, including the fiscal summit and the health care summit, where there were representatives from the Consortium of People with Disabilities (CCD) and ADAPT, and the Small Business Administration roundtable, to which four people with disabilities were invited to participate.

He said, "The regional health care forums across the country are getting their fair share of people with disabilities. People with disabilities have a seat at the table,"

Stressing the administration's commitment to hiring people with disabilities at every level, Dale said, "We will make sure that people with disabilities are included across all the federal agencies."

Thousands in Gaza await disability payments

From Haaretz in Israel:

Thousands of Gazans handicapped in work-related accidents in Israel have not received their National Insurance Institute disability payments since January, Haaretz has learned.

The workers have approached the Workers Advice Center, saying the benefit payments were suddenly and inexplicably stopped. WAC said that about 5,000 Gazans became disabled following work-related incidents in Israel, and were receiving disability benefits from Israel.

They were legally employed within Israel and were recognized as disabled by the NII, which allocated them a monthly stipend of NIS 1,600.

The NII reported about 700 payment checks that were returned to their offices without reaching their destination. Prior to December 2008 the benefits were transmitted to the beneficiaries' accounts in the Bank of Palestine, via Israeli banks.

Since January 2009 Israeli banks no longer operate such transactions, and no alternative has yet been found.

"We are not guilty of the political situation, we are not guilty of the bureaucracy or of what's been happening in Gaza, we are disabled and hungry," said Zachi Masri, a resident of Gaza entitled to disability benefits. "Before the war there were some Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] people connecting us to the Insurance Institute but since the war it all stopped and there's no one to talk to anymore. We have a right to live with dignity after working loyally until the very end."

Masri was employed in Israel and injured his shoulder after falling off a ladder in 1996. He said that he tried to call the NII when the monthly payments failed to arrive, but there was no one to speak to.

"It's been three months now and we haven't gotten a single shekel. People are complaining they can't buy groceries. We have children, they need to go to school, we need food and we have nothing. Someone has to find a solution, even if we have to get the checks at the checkpoint."

WAC director Assaf Adiv said, "the workers are in a state of uncertainty. They include a severely injured person with 75% disability. These people were entirely dependent on even the smallest benefits, and without them they may reach the point of starvation."

The NII said in a statement, "Until December, the residents of Gaza entitled to a disability benefit received it through Palestinian banks represented in Israel by Israeli banks. In January we received a notice from the Bank of Israel telling us that this situation no longer applied, and we have been trying to find alternative ways to transfer the payments to the beneficiaries.

Active discussions are being held in these very days to resolve this situation, and the beneficiaries will naturally receive retroactive payments from January on."

New Mobility chronicles the growing visibility of actors with disabilities in its April cover story

From the intro to the story by Allen Rucker in New Mobility magazine. The article also includes a sidebar Q&A with actress Teal Sherer (pictured). Full disclosure: I am quoted in the article.

If you are trying to make some sense of how people with disabilities are faring in American media these days, your lying eyes are about all you have to go on. There have been academic studies about this, most notably one commissioned by the Screen Actors Guild in 2005 that reported actors with disabilities were "woefully underrepresented in the entertainment industry and face unique barriers ... due to perceived discrimination and lack of accommodation." One stat quoted in the study was especially ugly: namely, that less than .5 of 1 percent of characters with disabilities on television had speaking parts —.5 percent. This pathetic number has fueled the wrath of disability advocates for years. But sometimes statistics, like eyes, can lie, or at least distort the evidence. My own eyes tell me that there are many more characters with disabilities showing up on TV, film, ads and the Internet, in all kinds of weird and unpredictable ways. Yes, things are changing.

That SAG study — conducted by noted researchers Olivia Raynor and Katherine Hayward of UCLA's National Arts and Disability Center — is now a few years old in terms of TV and film trends. Today the networks are scrambling to find anything to maintain market share, from borrowing hit shows like The Office and American Idol from Britain to putting Jay Leno in prime time. Cable programming, post-Sopranos, is much more adventurous. Let's see, there's a hit show on cable right now about a woman who sells marijuana, and another about a guy who sells meth, and another about a guy who's a serial killer, not to mention the old standby, Monk, a detective with — what, a disability! — obsessive-compulsive disorder. Oh, yeah, the guy who sells meth, the great Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad, also has a son with cerebral palsy, played by an actor who actually has CP, RJ Mitte. Just a couple of token instances, right, a small blip on the big radar of American media? Granted, disability inclusion is still a fringe phenomenon, and given the glut of current programming, the occurrences might not make that much of a statistical difference, but then again, all of cable was fringe TV until The Sopranos started drawing 13-14 million people to HBO on a given Sunday night to watch an overweight family man/sociopath with pork issues. And the fringe has a way of creeping into the mainstream.

Case in point: The Office. The original UK Ricky Gervais-Stephen Merchant version, all 12 episodes and a two-part Christmas special, was originally a cult show in the United States. It spread largely by word of mouth and caught up with a lot of hip comedy lovers via DVD. If you watch the second six shows of the original, you'll notice that one of the regular characters is Brenda, a wheelchair user who joins the office when it is forced to merge with another branch. David Brent (Ricky Gervais) and his numbskull assistant, Gareth, have no idea how to act around such a person. At one point, Gareth tries to carry Brenda down a flight of stairs during a fire drill and ends up abandoning her halfway down. David is just painfully offensive. Here's one of his typical remarks: "If you have lost both legs and both arms, just go, 'At least I'm not dead.' Though I'd rather be dead in that situation to be honest ... but I'm not saying people like that should be put down." Having a great sense of humor is a plus for actor Tracy Ashton, who plays Didi the one legged girl on NBC's hit show, My Name is Earl.

You get the idea. When the series came to NBC — now with 9 million viewers a week — Brenda didn't make the trip, but the sensibility of the original show did. In the second season of the American Office, Michael the manager (Steve Carell) burns his foot on a George Foreman grill, whines that the staff doesn't get his "disability," then brings in a real wheelchair user (played by real-life gimp Marcus York) to explain things. York's character, quickly disgusted, leaves after one of Michael's many offensive remarks. Blame it on the Brits, I say. If you've watched Extras, the HBO series by the same creators, you know that it abounds in disability humor. In one episode Andy, the Ricky Gervais character, can't believe a dwarf actor has such a hot girlfriend, and when the dwarf comes after him for flirting with her, Andy knee-drops him out cold. In another major story line, Andy, now a big sitcom star, egregiously offends the mother of a child with Down syndrome in a fancy restaurant — he's talking too loud for Andy — and becomes a media pariah because of it. In past American TV, it would be rare for a kid with Down syndrome to be seen eating out, let alone be seen as the inciting figure in a story line.

End the R-word campaign spreads nationally

From The AP. In the picture, Shannon Barksdale, 18, of Bowie, Md., right, encourages her peers to sign a pledge "not to say the R-word", at Bowie High School in Bowie, Md. on March 31.

WASHINGTON — The Special Olympics launched a campaign March 31 to banish the word "retard," a casual insult that derives from an out-of-favor medical term and has long been considered inappropriate.
People signed pledges not to use the word and students gathered to denounce its use at rallies from Florida to Alaska. Over the long-term, organizers hope to change attitudes about people with mental disabilities, who number more than 190 million worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

"It's insulting, it's painful and it hurts people," said actor Eddie Barbanell, who has Down syndrome and appeared in the movie "The Ringer." "Get that word out! End the word! Bury it!"

While "retard" itself was never a medical term, it derives from the phrase "mental retardation," which by around 1900 was commonly used by scientists and doctors, said Peter Berns, executive director of The Arc of the United States, a nonprofit advocate for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Even though Berns said its pejorative connotation was established in the 1960s, the phrase "mental retardation" is still used in many state and federal laws, much to the dismay of those trying to stamp out its use.

"People with intellectual disabilities themselves really mounted a movement that they did not want to be referred to with the word 'retarded,'" he said.

As such, the American Association of Mental Retardation changed its name in 2007 to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities after its members pleaded for the organization to do so. In another sign that the formal use of the term "mentally retarded" had lost currency, The Associated Press replaced it in its stylebook in 2008 with "mentally disabled."

Still, those seeking to end the term's use face a difficult battle.

"This word is deeply ingrained in our psyche. It comes up in a lot of different contexts," said Andrew Imparato, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of People With Disabilities. "We have to kind of call it out and start a conversation about why it's not OK to use the word."

Among the signatures collected Tuesday were several that belonged to governors: In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- whose mother-in-law founded Special Olympics — signed a proclamation to stop using the word, as did Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, while Iowa Gov. Chet Culver issued a certificate of recognition in support of the campaign.

But the manpower behind the "Spread the Word to End the Word" campaign comes from the students who devised the campaign last month during a Special Olympics youth summit in Idaho and organized rallies around the country.

In Florida, 16-year-old Noah Gray organized a rally for some 600 students at Miami Palmetto Senior High School that featured a rap performance and a speech by Barbanell about his experiences of being called a "retard."

"Like many other high school students and adults, I used to use the word 'retarded' all the time," said Gray, who was invited to speak at last month's youth summit. "Since coming down from the Special Olympics, I have not used that word once ... and I'm discouraging other people" from using it.

At Bowie High School in Maryland, 18-year-old Shannan Barksdale helped gather 861 pledges that will be sent to the Special Olympics organization. During the school's lunch periods, Barksdale yelled, "Say no to the R-word!" and urged students to sign pledges.

"The word should be eliminated from everyone's vocabulary," she said.

Special Olympics has enlisted actor John C. McGinley of the TV show "Scrubs" as a spokesman for the campaign. McGinley, whose 11-year-old son has Down Syndrome. said many people don't realize the word is hateful.

"It is saturated in the vernacular, and this will take a while. And it's OK," he said March 31. "But it's important to get under way."

Son of famous newspaper family writes memoir about life with learning disabilities

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Quinn Bradlee (pictured) was born with more than a few advantages. He has famous parents, former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and journalist Sally Quinn, and grew up in a historic mansion here in tony Georgetown. An ivy-covered life of fancy New England prep schools and summer houses were his for the taking.

But he had a hole in his heart at birth. And that was only the beginning.

After years of medical problems, Bradlee, 26, was diagnosed with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS), a genetic disorder. Harvard, the alma mater of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, was not in his future.

Not that it has slowed him down.

He has written a refreshingly honest memoir, A Different Life: Growing Up Learning Disabled and Other Adventures (Public Affairs, $24.95), in which he talks about everything from his overprotective and hard-charging mother — "she can be a little high-strung at times" — to feeling as if he's always fighting an uphill battle.

Bradlee's voice, both poignant and humorous, rings true, that of a young man struggling to figure out who he is and where he fits in.

Socially awkward, he talks about how cruel kids can be and how girls rarely pay any attention to him. (He dictated his story to co-author Jeff Himmelman, who massaged Tim Russert's Big Russ and Me into book form.)

"I just hope people who pick up this book will know who I am," he says, acknowledging he had no idea what he was getting himself into when he decided to write a book. "I've always thought of myself as this kid who is always going to be different. The guy not getting a girlfriend." (He reports happily that he does have a girlfriend.)

Talking about classes he took at an upstate New York boarding school for learning-disabled students, he relates a story about a Shakespeare class. "I don't remember Othello that well, but I do remember Iago. At one point he says, 'I am not what I am.' I wrote that down in my journal. I think most LD (learning-disabled) kids could relate to that."

Ben Bradlee, who won fame as the editor who oversaw the Post's Watergate coverage, concedes he was "just stunned" that his son wrote a book. "I didn't think he could pull off a book," says Bradlee, 87, who has his own reputation for brutal honesty. "A first-time book from an LD kid?"

Even Quinn Bradlee understands his father's reaction.

"I have always had trouble reading a book, so I never thought I'd write a book," says the newest author in the family. "But maybe I was supposed to write this book."

Ben Bradlee says he couldn't be prouder, but he wasn't thrilled with his son's use of profanity. "But then again, I have been known to use some of those words. I think it helped sell him as just one of the boys."

Neither parent saw the book until it was done.

"If I had my way, I would have taken out some of the facts about how hysterical I was on occasion," says Sally Quinn, 68. "But it is painfully honest. He's honest about us and he's honest about himself. If you're going to pretend, it's not going to work."

She says she would have "killed" to have had this book when her son was in and out of hospitals, before the VCFS diagnosis when he was 14, before she knew what was going on. (Quinn is Ben and Sally's only child; Ben has three children from two previous marriages.)

Their son's recently launched website also will come in handy for people struggling with learning disabilities.

FriendsOfQuinn.com, intended for students and their parents alike, is part of Healthcentral Network (healthcentral.com). He recently began working there as webmaster of his new site, which tells his own story. He hopes it will be inspiring for others "that I'm happy and doing well."

He also hopes it will become a Facebook-like site for learning disabled students. In
addition to the social networking, the site offers resources for the learning-disabled, including treatment options, side effects of medication and tips on everything from the best schools for the learning-disabled to dating.

It is very much his website, just like the idea for the book was his. He bristles at any suggestion he is riding his parents' coattails, despite the fact high-powered family friends — Jim Lehrer, Bob Woodward, Tom Brokaw — wrote glowing blurbs for the book.

"I don't want to end up being a mama's boy or daddy's boy," says Bradlee, who now lives in a group house next door to his parents.

When his mother suggested that A Different Life could be a play-off, a sequel, to his father's best-selling memoir, A Good Life, Quinn Bradlee quickly disagreed.

"It has nothing to do with my dad's book," he says. "I do live a different life."

California Congressman probes schools use of "quiet rooms" to discipline children with disabilities

From Anna Werner at CBS 5 TV in San Francisco:

SAN FRANCISCO -- A year-long CBS 5 investigation into the practice of locking school children up in closet-like "quiet rooms" is going national.

Over the past year, CBS5 Investigates uncovered numerous incidents in which children in classrooms all over the state were being forcibly pinned down to the ground and locked up in closets, just for misbehaving. Now, East Bay Congressman George Miller (pictured) has asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to conduct a nationwide investigation.

The latest incident involved a chair, set high up in a gymnasium at a middle school in Bryan, Texas. That's where school officials put a school student who misbehaved.

"I'm surprised they put a kid in a crawlspace," the boy's mother said. "I mean that's something you might expect in a juvenile facility at the turn of the century, not in a school today."

The discovery of the attic used as a so-called "quiet room" in Texas echoes what CBS 5 Investigates uncovered last year in California: School children shut into small rooms or closets when they misbehave, a practice advocates told us is extremely traumatizing.

"They have a fear that they are going to be left in the room and forgotten and these fears haunt them for years," said Leslie Morrison with Disability Rights California.

The investigation found teachers also using dangerous restraint techniques, duct-taping children to chairs, pinning them to the ground, causing injuries. CBS 5 Investigates found often, parents weren't even told.

After seeing CBS 5's reports, Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) said: "I am embarrassed because its my home state."

Miller authored the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 35 years ago to protect children and chairs the House Education and Labor Committee. But Miller said even he had no idea until now about these problems in schools, especially public schools.

"What your investigation pointed out is that these practices continue," he said. "It's surprising, it's also outrageous."

CBS 5 investigates found those practices aren't limited to California and uncovered incidents across the country.

The most recent report from an advocacy group showed at least 4 children have died from the use of restraints and seclusion in schools, including a 7-year-old girl from Wisconsin.

"She was bubbling milk in her class and wouldn't stay still," said Jane Hudson with the National Disability Rights Network. She said that girl was held in a seclusion room.

"Some are like coffins and some are 3.5 by 5 foot rooms. It's just a horrible thing that is happening to our children," Hudson said.

Rep. Miller said the government will now be investigating as well. "We've asked the GAO to give us assistance in that. They do these kinds of forensic investigations," he said.

None of the California schools involved in the incidents we reported were willing to go on camera. State education officials also turned down CBS 5 Investigates request for an on-camera interview.

So Congressman Miller told CBS 5: "I know a lot of people declined to discuss it with you. We'll be happy to have them discuss it with the Congress of the United States, because we are very, very interested. We spend a lot of money, federal dollars, in school systems. But we do not spend it to have children treated in that fashion."

A bill that would have restricted to use of restraints and seclusion in California schools made it through the state legislature last year, but Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed it. Just this month it was re-introduced by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma of San Francisco.

New study links pesticides, birth defects

From U.S. News & World Report:

Pesticides may increase the risk of birth defects, say researchers who found that the highest rates of birth defects in U.S. babies occur among those conceived in the spring and summer, the same time that there are increased levels of pesticides in surface water.

Researchers analyzed all 30.1 million births in the United States between 1996 and 2002. They found a strong association between higher rates of birth defects among women whose last menstrual period was in April, May, June or July and elevated
levels of nitrates, atrazine and other pesticides in surface water during those same months.

The data showed a statistically significant correlation between the last menstrual period and higher rates of birth defects for half of 22 categories of birth defects, including spina bifida, cleft lip, clubfoot and Down's syndrome.

"Elevated concentrations of pesticides and other agrochemicals in surface water during April through July coincided with significantly higher risk of birth defects in live births conceived by women whose last menstrual period began in the same months," study first author Dr. Paul Winchester, professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a school news release. "While our study didn't prove a cause and effect link, the fact that birth defects and pesticides in surface water peak during the same four months makes us suspect that the two are related," he said.

It's long been believed that these chemicals pose a threat to developing embryos, but this is the first study to make the connection between birth defects and elevated levels of pesticides at the time of conception, the authors said. The study is in the April issue of the journal Acta Paediatrica.

"Birth defects, which affect about three out of 100 newborns in the U.S., are one of the leading causes of infant death. What we are most excited about is that if our suspicions are right, and pesticides are contributing to birth defect risk, we can reverse or modify the factors that are causing these lifelong and often very serious medical problems," Winchester said.

Known risk factors for birth defects include alcohol use, smoking, diabetes, and advanced age among pregnant women. But even mothers who didn't have these risk factors had higher overall birth defect rates for babies conceived from April to July, the study found.

"These observations by Dr. Winchester are extremely important, as they raise the question for the first time regarding the potential adverse effect of these commonly used chemicals on pregnancy outcome -- the health and well-being of our children," Dr. James Lemons, a professor of pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine, said in the news release.

National Council on Disability wants more job opportunities for people with disabilities in federal government

From a National Council on Disability news release:

WASHINGTON—The National Council on Disability (NCD) March 31 concluded that current efforts to employ people with disabilities in the Federal Government have not worked well, but makes recommendations for reversing this trend.

The paper, Federal Employment of People with Disabilities (http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2009/pdf/Federal_Employment_of_People_with_Disabilities.pdf), examines the status of employment of people with disabilities in the Federal Government and makes recommendations for improving federal hiring and advancement of employees with disabilities. The paper summarizes the legal authorities and policy guidance, the responsibilities of various federal agencies charged with ensuring equal opportunity in federal employment, barriers to hiring and advancement, provisions for reasonable accommodations, and agency initiatives.

According to NCD Chairperson John R. Vaughn, “NCD has determined that despite laws, regulations, policy guidance, and excepted service hiring authorities designed to promote federal employment opportunities for people with disabilities, barriers to federal employment remains, and the number of employees with disabilities in the federal workforce is still low.”

NCD Employment Committee Co-Chair Linda Wetters added, “Recognition of continuing barriers to federal employment has led to some promising solutions that could create opportunities for agencies seeking qualified workers and for persons with disabilities seeking employment with the Federal Government.”

On the basis of the current status of people with disabilities in the Federal Government, NCD developed 10 recommendations. Five recommendations address the need for the Office of Personnel Management to examine personnel practices that continue to be barriers to hiring and advancing qualified people with disabilities. Four recommendations call on Congress to request the Government Accountability Office to conduct studies on Schedule A, supervisor practices, and the veterans’ preference system; and to expand the authority of the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program. One recommendation is for job seekers, encouraging people with disabilities to take advantage of the information available on opportunities in the Federal Government. These recommendations will address current barriers and promote opportunities for federal employment.

The purpose of NCD, an independent federal agency, is to promote programs, practices, policies and procedures that ensure full inclusion of people with disabilities into all aspects of society. NCD accomplishes this mission by providing advice and making recommendations to the President, Congress, governmental agencies, and other stakeholders.

Swedish study shows "baffling" link between autism, vinyl flooring

From Scientific American:

Children who live in homes with vinyl floors, which can emit chemicals called phthalates, are more likely to have autism, according to research by Swedish and U.S. scientists published March 30.

The study of Swedish children is among the first to find an apparent connection between an environmental chemical and autism.

The scientists were surprised by their finding, calling it "far from conclusive." Because their research was not designed to focus on autism, they recommend further study of larger numbers of children to see whether the link can be confirmed.

Bernard Weiss, a professor of environmental medicine at University of Rochester and a co-author of the study, said the connection between vinyl flooring and autism "turned up virtually by accident." He called it "intriguing and baffling at the
same time."

Experts suspect that genetic and environmental factors combine to cause autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder that has increased dramatically in children over the past 20 years.In the new study, Swedish families were asked questions about flooring as part of research investigating allergies and indoor air pollutants. Phthalates, used to make soft plastic, have in previous studies been connected to allergies and asthma.
The study was based on surveys that asked a variety of questions related to the indoor environment. Of the study's 4,779 children between the ages of 6 and 8, 72 had autism, including 60 boys.

The researchers found four environmental factors associated with autism: vinyl flooring, the mother's smoking, family economic problems and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation. Infants or toddlers who lived in bedrooms with vinyl, or PVC, floors were twice as likely to have autism five years later, in 2005, than those with wood or linoleum flooring.

"A greater proportion of children with autism spectrum disorder were reported to have PVC as flooring material in the child's and the parent's bedroom in 2000 compared to children without autism spectrum disorder," the scientists wrote in the journal Neurotoxicology. "Furthermore, children with autism spectrum disorder were reported to live in homes with more condensation on the inside of the windows, which...may be seen as an indicator for deficient ventilation."

Children in the study also were twice as likely to have autism if their mothers smoked cigarettes. The autistic children also were more likely to have asthma.

The lead investigator was Carl-Gustav Bornehag of Karlstad University in Sweden, who in 2004 found a high rate of asthma and allergies among children living in households with dust containing phthalates.

The scientists reported that they do not know if asthma and autism are related, or whether phthalates contributed to the risk of autism by some other mechanism, such as disruption of hormones. Phthalates in animal tests interfere with male hormones and sexual development.

"The data are far from conclusive. They are puzzling, even baffling, and not readily explicable at this time," the scientists wrote in their study. "However, because they are among the few clues that have emerged about possible environmental contributions to autistic disorders, we believe that they should be weighed carefully and warrant further study."

Several scientists who did not participate in the study cautioned that it has too many limitations to draw conclusions, but they suggested that new studies be designed to look for a connection between autism and indoor air pollutants.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who is director of the Children's Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, called the results "intriguing, but in my mind preliminary because they are based on very small numbers."

Landrigan said he has "no doubt that environmental exposures are involved in causation of autism," but he suspects the most significant exposures occur not in childhood, but early in pregnancy, "when the basic architecture of the brain is still being established."

The researchers relied on questionnaires and did not measure any chemicals in the homes, which limits the reliability of the findings because they do not know for certain that the children were exposed to phthalates. Previous studies have found that phthalates are common in household dust.Phthalates are used as softeners in plastic for vinyl flooring as well as other building materials, toys and medical equipment.

The chemicals have become increasing controversial in recent years, with Congress last year banning their use in children's products.

The American Chemistry Council, representing chemical companies producing phthalates, said in a statement Monday that the new study does not prove a link between the chemicals and autism.

"No other means for assessing these children existed except for the questionnaire and the parent's responses, making this finding rather insignificant," said Chris Bryant, the group's managing director. Autism, he said, "was not systematically analyzed, but just happened to be a question asked five years into the study."

The industry group has said flooring emits "extremely low" levels of phthalates. Because the compounds are heavy molecules with low volatility, they do not tend to evaporate, and wear and tear that might release particles into dust is slight, they said.

Vinyl flooring is commonplace in Sweden, where only about 1 percent of homes have carpeted floors. But it is uncommon in U.S. bedrooms, so it may not be related to autism among American children. However, carpeting contains other contaminants, including pesticides and brominated flame retardants, which have been found to harm brain development in animal tests.

The scientists said their new finding "suggests that studies of other chemical contaminants with endocrine disruptor properties might yield useful insights into the genesis of" autism.Previously, three studies in California have found a connection between children's exposure to household or agricultural pesticides and autism.

Rates of autism in California have increased seven-fold since 1990, a recent study found. Because genetics do not change that quickly, scientists suspect that chemical pollutants are probably playing a role. But there have been few studies attempting to pinpoint which chemicals, or combination of chemicals.

Connecticut makes Medicaid money available for community-based mental health services

From the Stamford Plus Magazine:

Governor M. Jodi Rell March 31 announced that beginning April 1, Medicaid funding will become available to support community-based services to help people with serious mental illness avoid long stays in Connecticut nursing homes.

Governor Rell noted that the program is one of only four in the nation approved under a special Medicaid waiver – another example of how the state is using innovative strategies to improve access to care while simultaneously increasing federal revenue.

“Essentially, this initiative will allow Connecticut to support community-based mental health services with Medicaid dollars – money that previously had only paid for a person’s stay in a nursing home,” Governor Rell said. “We’re delighted to offer community-based care as a means of reducing the number of people with serious mental illness in nursing homes. This is tangible progress on an important issue.

“We are also pleased to have this new federal revenue source at a time when the state is working so hard to make ends meet,” the Governor said.

“The collaboration between Connecticut’s departments of Social Services and Mental Health and Addiction Services is paying dividends for people with disabilities who need community services and for taxpayers – and that’s good government at work.”

Thomas A. Kirk, Jr., Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, said, “We’ve decided to call this the ‘WISE’ program – for Working for Integration, Support and Empowerment, because it will empower people
with psychiatric disabilities and sustain them within naturally occurring community supports. By diverting and discharging people with serious mental illness from nursing homes into rehabilitative care in the community, we’re setting them on the road to recovery.

"As part of our planning for the waiver program, we assessed hundreds of nursing home residents,” Commissioner Kirk said. “Over and over again, they would ask us to help them return to community living – and now we can enable them to live their dreams. We’re also helping to bring a new source of federal funds to our community service provider network.”

The WISE program is based on an exemption to federal regulations known as a Home and Community Based Services waiver. The waiver was granted by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services through the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The WISE program is part of a larger effort within the state to re-balance care by placing more emphasis on serving people in community settings rather than institutions. The WISE program is linked to another DSS initiative called Money Follows the Person (MFP), which is focused on seniors with a broad range of disabling conditions who have been in nursing homes for more than 6 months. MFP is expected to serve about 700 individuals in the next three years.

New play focuses on disabled Iraq vet, paralyzed firefighter, aneurysm survivor

Broadway World reports:

The Public Theater will present staged readings of 12 new plays by the inaugural class of the Emerging Writers Group, an annual program that targets playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers and nurtures their artistic growth by providing necessary resources and support.

The Spotlight Series, running April 13-June 29, will combine first-rate theatrical talent with new works written and developed by members of the Emerging Writers Group during their time at The Public.

On Thursday, April 30, "I STAND CORRECTED," written by Akin Salawu, (pictured) will be staged. Its description: While in rehab, a paralyzed 9/11 fireman, an Iraq Vet amputee, an aneurysm survivor, and a hate crime victim learn to fall seven times but get up eight.

Program works to stop river blindness in Guatemala

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON -- Dogged education and distribution of an anti-parasitic drug have virtually eradicated river blindness in badly affected parts of Guatemala, researchers reported on March 30.

And a second study showed that treating family members with antibiotics helped stop the spread of trachoma, another common cause of blindness.

The two studies in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases show it is possible to end the misery caused by common but not usually fatal diseases, the researchers said.

"In a few short years, with continued hard work and increased political will, river blindness will never threaten the Americas again," Dr. Frank Richards of the non-profit Carter Center's River Blindness Program said in a statement.

His international team of researchers found that a program by the Guatemalan government and the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program of the Americas to give Merck and Co's (MRK.N) drug ivermectin to 85 percent of the at-risk population in Escuintla, Guatemala, virtually stopped the epidemic.

River blindness, known medically as onchocerciasis, is caused when the roundworm Onchocerca volvulus is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected black fly.

The parasite causes eye damage that can lead to blindness and skin disease. It affects 18 million people worldwide and has made 300,000 blind.

None of the children in the community aged 7 or younger were infected and none of the nearly 15,000 black flies tested carried the parasite, the researchers report in the study, available online here.

In a second study, a team led by Isobel Blake of Imperial College London found they could greatly reduce transmission of trachoma, the most common cause of blindness, by focusing on households in Tanzania and Gambia.

Trachoma, which infects 84 million people globally and has affected the vision of 8 million, is caused by the bacteria Chlamydia trachomatis and can be treated with antibiotics.

"We have shown that within-household transmission ... accounts for almost three quarters of new infections across the four communities we studied," David Mabey of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

"Failure to treat all infected members of a household during the mass administration of antibiotics is likely to lead to the rapid re-infection of that household, followed by a more gradual spread across the community."

Household spread is the same as for any infectious disease, added Blake. "This happens through contact with an infected person's hands, or with objects like towels and clothing that have picked up the bacteria, or with flies, which transfer the bacteria from person to person," she said.

"If control programs make sure they treat everyone who is living with an infected person, they can greatly reduce the spread of the infection."

Autism rates higher in U.S.-born Somali children

From The New York Times. In the picture, Ahmed Essa, 8, who is autistic, worked on a math exercise at school in Bloomington, Minn., with his teacher Lacey Brock.

Confirming the fears of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Health Department agreed March 31 that young Somali children there appeared to have higher-than-usual rates of autism.

Though health officials emphasized that their report was based on very limited data, they concluded that young Somali children appeared to be two to seven times as likely as other children to be in classes for autistic pupils.

Dr. Sanne Magnan, the state health commissioner, said the finding was “consistent with the observations by parents,” who have been saying for more than a year that alarming numbers of Somali children born in this country have severe autism. Somalis began immigrating into the area in the 1990s, fleeing civil war in their homeland. The report made no effort to explain why the children had autism. Its authors did not examine children or their medical records. They accepted the diagnoses — some by doctors, some by school evaluators — that admitted children to special-education classes, and they calculated rates for different ethnic groups. They counted only 3- to 4-year-olds, only children in Minneapolis public schools, and only children born in Minnesota. They drew no comparisons with Somalis in other cities.

There have been anecdotal reports of higher autism rates among Somalis in some American cities, and no formal studies. A small study in Sweden reported high rates among Somali schoolchildren in Stockholm.

Idil Abdull, the mother of an autistic child who has long tried to draw attention to the Minneapolis situation, said she was “happy that they said, ‘Yes, there is a problem.’ ”

“I knew they couldn’t count everyone,” added Ms. Abdull, a founder of the Somali American Autism Foundation. “I know there are Somalis whose kids are under the bed and not taken anywhere and kids who go to private schools or charter schools that weren’t counted.

“But at least they didn’t say, ‘No, it’s all in your minds.’ If they had done that, I’d picket in front of their building.”

Istahil Ma’alin, who has an autistic son, said, “They told us that what our eyes feel, they feel it, too.”

Dr. Magnan said possible next steps included extending the study to Minneapolis suburbs or other cities with Somali populations or doing a study based on medical diagnoses that would try to determine autism rates statewide. But she added that creating statewide registries was difficult and expensive, even for easier-to-diagnose illnesses like cancer.

Dr. Magnan noted that this study found “strikingly low” numbers of Asian and American Indian children in the same special-education classes. But she cautioned that the reason might not be lower autism rates; instead, parents might not be enrolling their children in those classes, or might be sending them to private schools.

The study was done in consultation with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Coleen Boyle, director of the agency’s division of birth defects and developmental disabilities, called the study well done but preliminary, adding, “It highlights the importance of ongoing monitoring.”

There are no plans yet to study autism in Somalis elsewhere or to do genetic studies, Dr. Boyle said.

The disease control agency monitors autism diagnoses among 8-year-old children in 14 sites around the country, and in 2007 it estimated that about 1 child in 150 had an autism-spectrum disorder. Rates are roughly the same for whites and blacks, Catherine Rice, another C.D.C. official, said recently. They are lower among Hispanics, possibly because of poor medical care or cultural reticence, she said. Too few Asians were monitored to make estimates.

Training program for disabled people in Bangladesh gets underway

From The Daily Star in Bangladesh:

The government has, for the first time ever, launched a five-year programme involving Tk 155 crore to train and rehabilitate the disabled in the country.

This programme, funded by World Bank, has been effective from January 28 this year after the agreement with the bank was signed on December 28 last year.

It will be implemented in collaboration with different Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) at field level across the country by April 28.

Under this programme, titled 'Promotion of Services and Opportunities to the Disabled Persons of Bangladesh', the government aims to treat disability as a development issue, raise awareness about it among policymakers and legislators and make existing laws and policies friendly to Persons with Disability (PWD).

This programme would also provide services to PWDs, especially rehabilitation to disabled women, and education for them.

According to World Health Organisation, about 1.5 crore or 10 percent of the total population is disabled in Bangladesh. Of them, more than seven percent are physically disabled and the remaining intellectually challenged.

“The government is trying to rehabilitate PWDs with trainings, assistance and development programmes through the National Foundation for Development of Disabled Persons (NFDDP),” Social Welfare Ministry Secretary Begum Kamrunnessa Khanam said.

Earlier in 2001, the government okayed an act titled Bangladesh Disability Welfare Act. Experts, however, argued that the act is sketchy and also does not give any specific directions about utilising people with disabilities as a positive human resource power.

An amendment to the act, to address its shortcomings, was to be approved in December 2007 but has not been done till date. There are also no moves at the national level to develop this vast human resource of the country with proper training.

As the nation observes National Disability Day today, many disabled people express their fears and uncertainty about their future in a country, which largely ignores their plight.

Nazia is one such person.

A masters student of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University (DU), Nazia is not sure whether she will be able to secure a job after she graduates, given that she is visually impaired.

She already had to face many hurdles to come this far in life. Statistics show that only one in 100 persons with a disability in our country get a chance for higher education.

“Those of us with disabilities somehow cope through life. But I am still uncertain about my own future. Unlike normal students, I don't know if I can secure a job even after acquiring a post-graduate degree,” Nazia said.

Nazia is one of 41 students at DU who suffer from visual impairment. Another 20 are physically challenged.

Mujibur Rahman, DU's welfare officer for the disabled, told The Daily Star most students with disabilities who have graduated from DU remain unemployed. He cites himself as an example of a person who is visually impaired and has no problems carrying out a proper job.

“The situation could be improved if the government took initiatives to recruit these unemployed people to the vacant posts in schools for the visually impaired across the country,” he suggested.

Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) working with PWDs say that the government does not seem concerned enough about rehabilitating the disabled.

Those intellectually challenged can be converted to skilled human resources if their problems are identified and they are trained accordingly. Disabilities can be categorised into four main levels: mild, moderate, severe and profound. People with mild to moderate types of intellectual disability can easily be trained to a certain level to do specified jobs, experts point out.

Society for the Welfare of the Intellectually Disabled (SWID), Bangladesh President Sajeda Humayun Kabir told The Daily Star, “The focus must be on identifying the level of one's disability and train them, in order to bring them out to the mainstream.”

Suman, 26, suffers from severe intellectual disability. He works at Reneta Ltd, a pharmaceuticals company, sticking labels on products. He went to a SWID school and was given proper training to enable him to earn his own living, and he is doing fine now.

Around 20 students from SWID schools are at present working at different organisations and are self-reliant. Many have been working for the past seven to eight years and are doing well. The figure is negligible considering that the school has 7500 students across the country.

Still this demonstrates the possibilities of proper rehabilitation.

Some Shriners Hospitals may close

From the Greenville News in S.C.:

Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville is one of six Shriners hospitals that could be shuttered around the country as the organization copes with mounting budget problems.

The Shriners Hospital endowment has been declining since 2001 and operating at a deficit, said Ralph Semb, CEO of Shriners Hospitals for Children.

“We can’t afford to operate 22 hospitals,” he said. “So we have put together three or four options and one is to close these hospitals.”

The Greenville hospital has been a part of the community for more than 80 years, treated about 15,000 patients last year and employs 249 people. And beyond caring for children, it sponsors a variety of community events, such as last year’s baseball game between patients and two local Little League teams and an upcoming medical conference on cerebral palsy in June.

The hospital, which treats children with cerebral palsy, club foot, spinal abnormalities and other orthopedic conditions, made the list because it is underutilized, Semb said.

However, Rodney Brown, chairman of the board of governors for the Greenville Shriners Hospital, said it is seeing more patients every year and always operates under its $18 million budget.

“There is no logical reason to close our hospital,” he said. “We’re seeing 1,600 patients a month in the outpatient setting and do 70 to 80 surgeries a month.”

Semb said the organization uses income from an endowment to fund the hospitals, which provide special orthopedic and burn care to children at no charge regardless of ability to pay. But that endowment declined from $8 billion to $5 billion, leaving the organization with a shortfall. Its 2009 operating budget is $856 million, he said.

“We’re starting to dig in to the endowment by $1 million a day to balance the budget,” he said. “If we’re going to take care of kids for another 88 years, we need to retrofit the system.”

Choices include closing the six hospitals or cutting their budgets by 25 percent, which would mean reduced services, Semb said.

Another possibility for the Greenville Shriners hospital is forging a relationship with Greenville Hospital System, he said.

Dr. William Schmidt, medical director of GHS’s Children’s Hospital, said a variety of options are being explored.

“The services they provide are invaluable in our community,” he said. “And I would want to do all we can to ensure those services stay in our community, whether we do something collaboratively or figure out a different scenario.”

Schmidt said no decision would be made until Shriners determines what it will do at an annual meeting in July.

But Brown said the Greenville Shriners hospital shouldn’t be on the list to begin with. It serves a six-state area from Alabama to Virginia, and the only other two hospitals in the Southeast are in Florida and Kentucky, he said.

Other hospitals in the system are much closer together geographically, he said, and the Greenville hospital is in the middle of the list when it comes to performance.

“When you look at statistics, we’re nowhere near the bottom,” he said.

The other hospitals are Erie, Pa.; Spokane, Wash; A, Springfield, Mass.; and Shreveport, La. A fifth hospital in Galveston, Tex., damaged by Hurricane Ike, has been closed since, and Semb said the vote would include whether to reopen it. One of the Greenville hospital’s more celebrated patients was Salee Allawe, a young Iraqi girl who lost both legs in an air strike.

Doctors operated on her before fitting her with two prosthetic legs, which she learned to use walking around Greenville in 2007. Brown said hospital employees are volunteering to cut their hours or take furloughs to keep the hospital open. Meanwhile, he said he will try to persuade Shriners that the hospital shouldn’t be closed.

“There are going to be a lot of kids that aren’t going to be treated,” he said. “And it’s really sad.”

Semb said that no matter what happens, no child will be left without care. But to keep all the hospitals running, he said the endowment needs to grow to $12 billion by 2014, a daunting task in today’s environment.

“We’re in a financial crisis like everyone else,” he said.