When aged care workers tell people what they do for a living the usual response is: ''I don't know how you do it.'' It is said with admiration as if only a warm, self-sacrificing, special person could stomach the job of looking after old people with dementia.
The same sympathetic response greets disability workers when they admit to working with intellectually disabled children who cannot feed or toilet themselves: ''I don't know how you do it. You must be a saint.''
They are not saints. They are trained professionals. And now they are demanding to be paid like trained professionals. For decades the work of the nation's 150,000 or so community sector employees - 85 per cent female - has been undervalued and underpaid. Everyone thinks they are wonderful - the Prime Minister included. But no one wants to pay them what they are worth.
Ultimately their salary is paid by us - the taxpayer. And taxpayers worry more these days about budget deficits than about the low wages of the workers who care for their elderly parents and their toddlers.
The bigger the salary taxpayers pull in and the more plush their city office, the more likely they are to be worried by budget deficits, and the less likely to support proper government funding of community services and the people who provide them.
Rape crisis counsellors, youth workers, family support workers and the rest who deal with society's broken, damaged, frail and forgotten are not only poorly paid but are rarely found in plush city offices; rather many work in dumps, demountables and cubby holes for charities and other non-government organisations that are wholly or largely funded by government grants.
The federal government in its submission last week to an important pay equity test case urges Fair Work Australia to carefully consider the wider costs to the nation's budget of granting community workers the better pay deal they seek. The case presents the best opportunity to close the gender pay gap since the 1972 equal pay decision.
The new Fair Work Act makes it possible for the first time, federally, to test pay rates in one job against those for comparable work, and to test by how much ''women's work'' has been undervalued.
But the government, instead of whole-heartedly supporting the unions who have mounted the challenge, is issuing dire warnings and threats. Large wage increases, even if phased in, could blow the government's return to budget surplus, it says. ''If any additional government funding is provided, it would likely come at the expense of other government-funded services,'' it warns.
It will not be a new fighter plane that will be jettisoned but a raft of services for the homeless, domestic violence victims and so on.
Nothing can get in the way of the government delivering its promised budget surplus, not even the chance for Labor to lift the pay of this historically undervalued predominantly female workforce to parity with men doing work of comparable value.
Aged care and disability workers and the rest are being asked to sacrifice themselves for the sake of a fiscal surplus.
In these relatively good economic times, the government maintains it cannot afford to pay community workers a decent salary, just as in the decade of the Howard government huge receipts from the mining boom were squandered on tax cuts for the better off while community workers fell behind.
Community workers might well ask if their time will ever come. Not in bad times, not in a recession surely, and not under a Coalition government with Work Choices in its DNA. If not now when, with a female Labor prime minister, who says she understands but unfortunately has higher priorities.
The government had offered early support for the case. It had agreed to back the Australian Services Union application for an equal remuneration order for community and disability workers. It had committed to provide evidence and research for the case and to support an agreed statement of fact.
It supplied in its submission plenty of evidence for the underpayment of this workforce, as promised. But it has baulked at paying up.
An agency such as Mission Australia faces a $3.735 million increase in salary costs under a proposed new salary scale. It doubts the government would pay its share of $2.518 million and warns that services will be cut or closed.
Community workers are not public servants. But as governments have outsourced more work to the charitable and non-government sector over the years, many community workers do virtually the same work as public servants - only for much less pay. For example, social workers employed by government earn $30,000 to $40,000 more than social workers employed by non-government agencies working on the same programs.
The huge turnover and critical shortages in aged care and childcare are harbingers of times to come. Childcare workers cannot afford childcare for their own children and aged-care workers retire with little superannuation. Australia will need more community workers, especially in aged and disability care, as the population ages and the pool of workers shrinks. We will not be able to attract them with peanuts and patronising praise for their saintliness.
Either the government should rethink its spending priorities or its fixation with budget surpluses. It would be a pity if our first female prime minister, and a Labor one at that, resiles from a historic chance to help under-paid, mainly women, workers gain wage justice.
They cannot eat their haloes.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
In Australia, government considers more livable wage for those who aid disabled or elderly people
From Adele Horin, columnist at The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia:
Celebrities go offline to raise funds for World AIDS day
On Dec. 1, Kim Kardashian is going to die a little. So is her sister, Khloé, not to mention Lady Gaga, David LaChapelle, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Serena Williams and Elijah Wood.
That day is World AIDS Day, and each of these people (as well as a host of others — the list keeps growing) will sacrifice his or her own digital life. By which these celebrities mean they will stop communicating via Twitter and Facebook. They will not be resuscitated, they say, until their fans donate $1 million.
“Dry your eyes, everybody,” Ryan Seacrest, the “American Idol” host and another participant in this cyberstunt, says in a videotaped “Last Tweet and Testament” that will be posted on his Facebook profile — and appended to a final post on Twitter — sometime after midnight on Tuesday night. “I don’t plan to be dead for too long.”
He adds, “Please buy back my life.”
“Come on, y’all,” the actress Jennifer Hudson says in a similar videotaped plea. “Buy my life back. Go on a shopping spree and buy as much of it as you can.”
It’s all part of the latest gambit by the singer-songwriter Alicia Keys (pictured) to raise money for her charity, Keep a Child Alive, which finances medical care and support services for children and families affected by H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa and India.
It’s rare that the Prototype column pays attention to celebrities, but Ms. Keys is the second one who has caught our attention by harnessing fame to philanthropy in an innovative way. The actor Ed Norton, who was featured in the September column, created a Web site that makes it easy to rally people to your cause.
Ms. Keys is up to something slightly different. She knows that she’s not alone in thinking that America increasingly treats its celebrities like commodities. But she believes she’s the first to tether that reality to technology to do some good.
“It’s really exciting. No foundation has used the technology before like we are,” says Ms. Keys, 29, a multiple Grammy Award winner.
On Sept. 30, Ms. Keys and her charity’s co-founder, Leigh Blake, started Buy Life, which sells $35 gray T-shirts imprinted with a bar code. People who have uploaded a Stickybits or Wimo application to their smartphones can donate $10 to Keep a Child Alive simply by scanning any Buy Life T-shirt’s bar code.
“This Shirt Fights AIDS,” the shirts say on the back. “Scan the bar code or Text ‘BUYLIFE’ to 90999 to Join the Fight.”
The planned “Digital Death” this week will take that idea a step further. Famous people with lots of friends, fans and followers will go silent online, but not before calling for an outbreak of generosity. The participants are believed to have nearly 29 million fans on Twitter alone.
And as of Sunday, three days before World AIDS Day, stylized full-color photographs of celebrities lying in coffins, seemingly lifeless, with eyes closed, are to be displayed on the Buy Life Web site.
“Kim Kardashian is DEAD,” says the text that accompanies one of those photos, which features the reality-show star in a low-cut sequined burial outfit that suggests she “died” after a night out clubbing. “Kim sacrificed her digital life to give real life to millions of others,” it adds, asking fans to “visit Buylife.org or text ‘KIM’ to ‘90999’ to buy her life now.”
The strategy here is not just to shock people into paying attention but to enable them to give by doing, as Ms. Keys puts it, “what you always do.”
“You’re always texting your friends,” she says. “Now, you’re going to text to Buy Life.”
All that fans have to do is text the first name of the celebrity they’re “mourning” to 90999, and $10 will be donated.
“It’s a really instant way of grabbing their compassion,” Ms. Blake says.
You’ve heard of impulse buying. These women hope to create a new phenomenon: impulse giving. But the twist is that they’re still couching it in retail terms — winking at people in a way that makes them want to join in. “We’re taking the fixation with retail and with buying and all of that, and we’re turning it on its head,” Ms. Blake says.
Ms. Keys first learned the power of texting a couple of years ago, when she appeared on “American Idol” and, with a single on-the-air plea, raised “half a million dollars in about four minutes,” Ms. Blake says, adding that to date, Keep a Child Alive has raised $27 million.
More recently, when Ms. Keys set out to recruit her fellow luminaries to “die” along with her — she made all the calls herself — she was struck that “when I laid down the whole concept, it was impossible to say no.”
Ms. Blake has a theory about why. By packaging famous people like any other consumer product, she says, Keep a Child Alive is acknowledging something that many A-listers already know. “The artists and celebrities get that they are sort of being devoured already,” she says. “So they might as well have a bar code.”
She adds, however, that she expects the Buy Life campaign to spread far beyond its most recognizable participants: “My dream is to walk around New York City and see the traffic stopped because people are all scanning each other’s T-shirts.”
Whether people will miss their favorite stars’ 140-character missives enough to pay money to restore them remains to be seen. But if even one in 1,000 of the 3,465,527 followers of @jtimberlake is willing to donate $10 to reactivate the account on which he recently posted “Happy Halloween everybody!” — well, it will start to add up.
Similarly, if each of the 3,649,592 people who follow @RyanSeacrest texts “RYAN” to 90999, well, it won’t be long before we all can again enjoy such pearls of wisdom as this recent post: “have u ever been getting a massage ... then feel some gurgling in ur stomach ... and fear a gas attack?? What do u do?!”
MS. BLAKE says she is braced for the digital-death campaign to create some confusion. “I’m sure there will be some people who get it wrong,” she says, predicting “a flurry of freak-outs among a few who think Kim Kardashian or Alicia Keys are actually dead. That will be outrageous.”
But that’s part of the point.
“We’re not one of those enormous twinset-and-pearls kind of bureaucracies; we’re a small, energetic activist organization,” Ms. Blake says. “And we think the language of donations is boring.”
Ms. Keys agrees, describing her philanthropic approach as simply “rock star.”
“Everything is done just rebellious,” she says. “You want to show all your folks and your friends: ‘Look what I’m into. Get into it, too!’”
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Laura Hershey, renowned disability rights activist, writer and consultant, dies
Laura also wrote a column for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. Here's her last column on "The Good and Bad of Gratitude" on Nov. 24. It is a beautiful love letter to her daughter, her partner, her family and the entire disability community.
View more than a dozen interviews with Laura Hershey at It's Our Story.
Here's a wonderful remembrance of Laura from Forward, which includes video clips about her MDA telethon activism.
The Denver Post published her obituary Nov. 28.
A memorial site for Laura has been set up at: http://www.laurahershey.com/memorial/.
She will be sorely missed as one of the most important voices of the Disability Rights Movement.
Here's how Laura described herself on Facebook:
I'm a writer and poet, with an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. I'm also a consultant and trainer, specializing in disability rights, health policy, and community organizing. I'm an activist for social justice, particularly disability rights, and for economic justice, including the rights of home care workers and other people whose labor supports our independence. You can learn more about my writing and my work on my website, at http://www.laurahershey.com/.
Here's a profile of Laura from her undergraduate institution, Colorado College:
Some people love challenge. Laura Hershey thrives on it. She disputed her doctors’ assumptions that spinal muscular atrophy would end her life while she was still a child.
She took exception to any question that she could succeed academically. Today she challenges beliefs, laws, governments, individuals -- anyone or anything she feels threatens the rights of the disabled community.
Laura always knew she would go to college, and she expected to go to the best one available. She came to the CC campus and found it, for the most part, ready to roll. “Right away,” she says, “they found me a dorm room that was accessible to me.”
As she became more involved in campus activities, Laura found some paths that needed changing. She worked as a writer and features editor for the Catalyst student newspaper and had no trouble. She met with other writers and editors at different, accessible locations to discuss and submit her assignments. “Then I became editor in chief,” she recalls, “and I really needed to be there. So they relocated the office from Cutler Hall, which wasn’t accessible, to Cossitt Hall, which was -- if just barely.” Laura found much willingness and few barriers at the college. Only one class, scheduled to be held in one of the smaller houses on campus, had to be relocated.
Prior to graduation, Laura didn’t consider herself an activist. But when she was awarded a Watson Fellowship, she traveled to England to write about the disability rights movement there. The experience was a turning point, and Laura became involved with disability groups, especially those for women, when she returned to Denver. Early in 1985, she attended the National Women’s Studies Conference in Seattle. After meeting Laura, one speaker suggested the conference organizers send Laura to the Nongovernmental Organization Forum on Women in Nairobi later that year. And they did. “That conference jolted me into an awareness of the global disabled community and the issues and possibilities for organizing and activism,” she says. “I was really drawn to the issues and felt like I had an important role to play. It made me make a commitment.”
Today, well known as a disability rights activist and writer, Laura speaks at conferences for disabled and non-disabled alike. She serves as a consultant and trainer for conferences and corporations, and she’s employed half time as the advocacy editor for CanDo.com, an Internet magazine. Colorado College paid tribute to Laura and her work by awarding her an honorary doctorate in 1993.
While Laura used to roll her wheelchair out in front of buses, she says such tactics are no longer the norm. But her fight continues, focusing now on issues involving Social Security benefits, independent living, opposition to the legalization of assisted suicide, and work disincentives. “People with disabilities are often prevented from working for fear of losing crucial benefits,” she explains. On the board of directors of an organization called Not Dead Yet, Laura believes “the media presents the issue as black and white, the pro-life religious perspective and the liberal so-called pro-choice perspective. But we see this as an issue of discrimination based on health status.”
Because of the focus on writing combined with the liberal arts at Colorado College, Laura believes she’s not only a better writer, but also a better advocate -- and a happier person. “Because I was taught to think from a variety of perspectives, I can write an article about a legal issue without having gone to law school, and people take me seriously,” she says. “I can control my own schedule and where I work. I can make my own decisions about what assignments to accept and when to say ‘no.’ My liberal arts education was a real benefit to me, and I’d like to see more people with disabilities take that same opportunity.”
Friday, November 26, 2010
Boston program trains blind people for broadcasting careers
BOSTON — From a studio high above Boylston Street, a chorus of voices carry through the airwaves, promising an “auditory journey” rife with breaking news, book reviews and interviews with the experts of the day.
The voices are smooth, the editing flawless and the content engaging, but the people behind the mikes are hardly professionals. They are the four blind or visually impaired students who make up the first class of VOICE, or Vocational Opportunities in Communication Education.
The groundbreaking program, launched in September by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and Marshfield-based Talking Information Center, used federal stimulus money to purchase broadcasting equipment for use by the visually impaired.
Clocks and labels are super-sized, the switchboard is organized with the blind in mind, and the digital editing software can be used without seeing the screen. A small alcove in the corner holds a blanket and a dog bone, offering temporary respite for a student’s guide dog.
With instructor Jay Rufo at the helm, the program offers an avenue for students who have the education – but not the real-life training – to enter the job market.
Now in week 11 of 12, the novice disc jockeys have mastered the technical aspects of radio, but they have also gained the confidence to break into fields they previously considered off-limits, said Massachusetts Commission for the Blind Commissioner Janet LaBrec.
“They are being innovative, they are outgoing, and they are no longer questioning whether they can get here,” LaBrec said.
When creating VOICE, LaBrec worked closely with longtime collaborator Ron Bersani, executive director of the Talking Information Center, to develop a curriculum that bolsters students’ confidence in broadcasting but also “diminishes the isolation” felt by many blind people entering the job market.
That’s the goal of the program, said Bersani, a Marshfield resident who has helped run Talking Information Center, a radio reading service, for more than three decades.
“If they all end up radio personalities, that’s great,” he said. “But the goal of the program is to build self-confidence and to learn skills. If they can master this equipment, they can do anything.”
The refurbished sound studio is named after Bersani in recognition of his efforts to bring the program to fruition.
That message has reached the four students loud and clear. Ranging in age from 20 to 56, and with backgrounds from theater to a former taxi driver, they will all finish next week with goals they thought were impossible before VOICE.
“It wasn’t something I thought I could do before,” said Katie Crocker, a Wareham resident who spends five hours commuting to and from Boston each day with her service dog, Traveler.
“In a way I think this was life-changing,” said Crocker, 24. “I didn’t think I could do this before, but it has really broadened my scope for employment.”
Throughout the course, the students have traveled to the State House to report on White Cane Safety Day, interviewed doctors and politicians, and reported on new opportunities in sports and music for the blind community.
Fellow student Mike Gionet, 30, of Brockton recently graduated from Bridgewater State University with Crocker. Both had dreams of entering the communications field, but no way of breaking in.
“It’s one thing to learn it in a classroom and another to be doing it,” Gionet said. “I just was never presented with that opportunity before.”
For Corey O’Rourke, a 22-year-old improv performer with the easy wit of a seasoned disc jockey, the program provides technical skills and a sense of community.
“I spent my entire life resisting help and never asking for it,” said O’Rourke, of Cambridge. Before the program, he had never met another blind person.
“I just wanted to be normal,“ he said. “I didn’t want people to know. Being here, I’ve learned a lot.”
The program’s vocational training might benefit its oldest student, Kinski Duah of Dorchester, the most. Duah supported himself by driving a taxi after he emigrated from Ghana in 1980.
When a doctor told him he was losing his sight to glaucoma, he went to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind to find another path and was selected for the program.
Now the 56-year-old has dreams of returning to Africa to set up a radio station of his own.
The next 12-week session will begin in early February, and the four graduates from the founding class will likely enter the commission’s nationally renowned internship program, which places visually impaired clients with employers across the state.
Their success is proof that the program can change the way the visually impaired are viewed by potential employers, LaBrec said.
“If one person who goes through this program is placed in a competitive job who could not have been before, the program has paid for itself,” she said. “They will be self-sufficient, and the return on that investment is enormous.”
For Bersani, who helped found the Talking Information Center in 1978, adding the educational aspect to the organization’s repertoire changes everything.
“We’ve done some amazing things in 32 years, but I think this is what I’m most proud of,” he said.
Stigma of mental illness not going away, drug ads may increase it, research says
Persistent efforts to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness haven't succeeded as well as hoped, suggesting that new strategies might be necessary.
For decades, a number of organizations have been trying to persuade the public that mental illnesses such as depression, alcohol dependence and schizophrenia are neurobiological disorders, not just people behaving badly, hoping that harsh judgments would subside.
Even drug ads unintentionally bolstered the view of the mentally ill as having "lifelong" or permanent problems, with their emphasis on science-focused explanations of the brain mechanisms behind some mental illness, claims a study appearing in the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
This study compared people's responses to vignettes describing individuals with mental illness in surveys conducted a decade apart, in 1996 and 2006.
Certain attitudes did change for the better. For instance, in 2006, 67 percent of respondents believed major depression had a neurobiological basis, compared with only 54 percent in 1996.
And support for treatment rose over the years, with 79 percent supporting treatment for alcoholism in 2006, up from 61 percent in 1996. The proportion of respondents supporting treatment for depression also rose from 75 percent in 1996 to 85 percent a decade later.
But these changes didn't bring mental illness out from the shadows. Respondents still preferred to keep their distance from people with mental ills and still perceived them as dangerous -- attitudes the researchers described as "surprisingly fixed."
If anything, the "stigma seems to be getting worse," said Patrick Corrigan, associate dean of psychology research and a distinguished professor with the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
A 2007 study found that respondents to a survey who labeled children as mentally ill were more likely to want to keep their distance from them, as opposed to labeling the children as physically ill.
"I really do think Americans respond differently to problems of the body and problems of the mind. When you inject the genetic or biological explanation, it may convey a sense of permanence," said Bernice A. Pescosolido, lead author of the American Journal of Psychiatry article. "If it's [cast as] biological or genetic, all of a sudden it takes on this air of permanence which people start to worry about."
So what might be the next strategy to reduce this pervasive stigma?
Corrigan believes the answer -- or at least part of it -- lies in stories, "having people with a condition tell their story. This, he said, might include a "way-down story" and a "way-up story": "the way-down proving you are a person with a mental illness and the way-up proving that you have recovered."
"Most people with serious mental illness do recover, so that's why way-up stories are so important," he added. "We would suggest that [these stories] be told to key power groups -- instead of trying to change popular opinion, trying to change important power groups like landlords [and employers]."
Pescosolido, who is a distinguished professor of sociology and director of the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research at Indiana University in Bloomington, believes that targeting youth would be helpful.
"Let's start working with the kids. The first two words that kids use to hurt each other are 'crazy' and 'gay.' Kids are already picking those things up," she said. "We need to get them early."
Does that mean handing teachers one more curriculum on top of race, safe sex and various other issues?
"I don't think so," she said. "We have to help [children] understand difference. She suggests making mental illness "part of a spectrum of illness, an 'Everyone Has Something' tag line," she said.
In Central Africa, U.S. sponsors training for experts in infectious diseases
From the Voice of America:
Scientists usually point to Central Africa as the site of some of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. Cash-strapped governments usually depend on foreign assistance, especially when pandemics break out.
But now, there’s fresh reason to hope for a prompt and effective local response. With US sponsorship, Central Africa has begun training local specialists in field epidemiology and laboratory science.
Health officials in the Republic of Congo are sounding the alarm after the emergence of a mysterious disease they say has claimed more than 20 lives in a month.
The illness resembles polio, which leads to paralysis, says Prof. Alexis Elhira Dokekias, the country’s director of health. He adds that efforts to identify the disease have met with little success. As they wait for foreign assistance, they’re preserving the remains of deceased victims for analysis. Dokekias says in the meantime, the death toll is skyrocketing.
That’s just one of several epidemics, including a cholera outbreak that reportedly originated in northern Cameroon last May and is still killing hundreds in neighboring Nigeria and Chad. Diseases like ebola and dengue fever silently killed hundreds before they were identified.
Experts say a major contributing factor is inadequate epidemiological surveillance, or its sheer absence in some countries in the region.
Epidemiological surveillance is the systematic collection, analysis and dissemination of health information so that officials can plan, carry out and evaluate projects..
Central Africa is home to some of the world’s poorest people and governments. Officials are welcoming a US-sponsored post-graduate program to groom 18 field epidemiologists and laboratory scientists from three countries -- eight from the DRC and five each from Central African Republic and Cameroon.
The training project is called the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program, or FELTP. It’s a two-year master’s degree course and it’s been underway since late October at the University of Yaounde.
The program will not only help find antidotes to pandemics in Central Africa, says Prof. Oumarou Bouba, rector of the University of Yaounde, but also contribute to sub-regional integration with the possibility of cross-border collaboration to track down, prevent and control the spread of disease.
The course is the first of its kind in Central Africa. Worldwide there are now 52 such programs that have been launched by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) since 1980. For Central Africa, the project is also supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization.
Officials say its launch is part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Global Health Initiative, which seeks to build the capacities of partner nations to address their public health needs with their own resources. Over half the programs are now run independently of US government support.
“This program is going to help Central Africa fight its epidemics and conduct surveillance,” says Peter Nsubuga, who represents the CDC project. “There’re several diseases, vaccine-preventable diseases. So the problems have always been there. This is an opportunity to start dealing with them using people who are trained here and who will be deployed here and we know this will continue.”
Graduates elsewhere have led successful investigations of public health emergencies in their home countries – including HIV infection and avian and H1N1 (or swine) flu, among vaccinated populations.
“I really believe that through this program, we can help control cholera,” says Robert Jackson, the US ambassador to Cameroon, “we can do better with polio, measles – we can do better in attacking contagious diseases when they break out and through that, we can do a better job of keeping disease from spreading from country to country.”
But observers warn the project may lead nowhere if the necessary equipment and infrastructure are not put in place so graduates can use their training.
Prof. Paul Herrling is head of the Novartis Institutes for Developing World Medical Research. He says on the whole, African governments must substantially increase their budgets for health and research to better prevent and control the spread of disease:
“The GDP they allocate to research is very, very small. For doing research, you need very strong -- very strong infrastructure. You have to be rich essentially and that’s not the case, and so it’s rather difficult.”
But Cameroon government officials say they’re sparing no effort in ensuring that the country reaps a hundred percent benefit from the program. They have pledged to build field laboratories across the country to conduct permanent surveillance and provide prompt alerts.
Environmental pollutant may contribute to MS, Purdue researchers say
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have found evidence that an environmental pollutant may play an important role in causing multiple sclerosis and that a hypertension drug might be used to treat the disease.
The toxin acrolein (pictured) was elevated by about 60 percent in the spinal cord tissues of mice with a disease similar to multiple sclerosis, said Riyi Shi, a medical doctor and a professor of neuroscience and biomedical engineering in Purdue University's Department of Basic Medical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Center for Paralysis Research and Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.
The research results represent the first concrete laboratory evidence for a link between acrolein (pronounced a-KRO-le-an) and multiple sclerosis, he said.
"Only recently have researchers started to understand the details about what acrolein does to the human body," Shi said. "We are studying its effects on the central nervous system, both in trauma and degenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis."
The compound is an environmental toxin found in air pollutants including tobacco smoke and auto exhaust. Acrolein also is produced within the body after nerve cells are damaged. Previous studies by this research team found that neuronal death caused by acrolein can be prevented by administering the drug hydralazine, an FDA-approved medication used to treat hypertension.
The new findings show that hydralazine also delays onset of multiple sclerosis in mice and reduces the severity of symptoms by neutralizing acrolein.
"The treatment did not cause any serious side effects in the mice," Shi said. "The dosage we used for hydralazine in animals is several times lower than the standard dosing for oral hydralazine in human pediatric patients. Therefore, considering the effectiveness of hydralazine at binding acrolein at such low concentrations, we expect that our study will lead to the development of new neuroprotective therapies for MS that could be rapidly translated into the clinic."
The researchers also learned the specific chemical signature of the drug that binds to acrolein and neutralizes it, potentially making it possible to create synthetic alternatives with reduced side effects. The studies are detailed in a paper appearing online this month in the journal Neuroscience. The paper was written by doctoral students Gary Leung, Wenjing Sun and Lingxing Zheng; graduate research assistant Melissa Tully, who is an MD-Ph.D. student at Purdue and the Indiana University School of Medicine; postdoctoral researcher Sarah Brookes; and Shi.
In multiple sclerosis, the myelin insulation surrounding nerve cells is destroyed and the nerve fibers themselves are damaged.
"We think that acrolein is what degrades myelin, so if we can block that effect then we can delay the onset of MS and lessen the symptoms," Shi said.
Acrolein induces the production of free radicals, compounds that cause additional injury to tissues after disease or physical trauma.
"We've discovered that acrolein may play a very important role in free radical injury, particularly in multiple sclerosis," Shi said.
The elevated acrolein levels in the MS mice were cut in half when treated with hydralazine. The drug represents a potential long-term therapy to slow the disease's progress.
"To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that acrolein acts as a neurotoxin in MS and also the first time anyone has demonstrated hydralazine to be a neuroprotective drug," Shi said.
Other researchers had previously shown that acrolein damages liver cells and that the damage can be alleviated by hydralazine, leading the Purdue researchers to study its possible effects on spinal cord tissues.
Further research will be conducted, and Shi's group has identified other potential compounds for binding acrolein. The research team, in a possible future collaboration with the Indiana University School of Medicine, also is working to improve the sensitivity of detection methods to measure acrolein levels in people with multiple sclerosis.
Study: Low-weight infants with Down syndrome more likely to be at risk for heart, lung disorders
From HealthDay News:
Infants with Down syndrome who weigh less than 3.5 pounds at birth are at high risk for heart and lung disorders that increase their chances of dying, a new study has found.
U.S. researchers analyzed the medical records of more than 50,000 very low birth weight (VLBW) infants who weighed between 0.875 pounds and 3.5 pounds at birth. They found that among this group of babies, those born with Down syndrome were about 2.5 times more likely to die during infancy than the other VLBW babies.
This increased risk of death was due in part to their higher rates of heart, lung and digestive tract disorders, and life-threatening blood infections, the study authors noted.
However, the researchers also found that Down syndrome infants were less likely than other VLBW infants to develop retinopathy of prematurity, a vision problem caused by overgrowth of blood vessels in the retina.
The study findings, published online Nov. 22 in the journal Pediatrics, may help guide the care and treatment of VLBW Down syndrome infants, the authors suggested.
"Previously, health professionals caring for very low birth weight Down syndrome infants had to base treatment decisions on studies of the general population of very low birth weight infants and on studies of infants with Down syndrome who may not have been of low birth weight," senior author Dr. Rosemary D. Higgins, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said in a U.S. National Institutes of Health news release.
"Our study provides much needed information for practitioners and families making treatment decisions for this unique group of patients," she added.
Australia reports mental illness five times higher in university students there
Researchers have found mental illness among Australian university students is five times higher than in the general population.
Despite Australia's booming economy, another study shows young people are also facing a tough time getting jobs.
Clinical psychologist Dr Helen Stallman from the University of Queensland says many students simply are not coping with university life.
"A really high proportion of university students are reporting higher levels of psychological distress and significantly more than that in the general population," she said.
Dr Stallman screened more than 6,000 students about their mental health.
She found 84 per cent were suffering psychological distress and she says almost one-fifth showed signs of mental illness.
"Students who are suffering very high levels of distress that is probably indicative of mental health problems, we had 19 per cent of students reporting that high," she said.
"In the general population that's only 3 per cent of people."
The study, published in the latest edition of Australian Psychologist, found students were feeling distressed about financial issues.
Dr Stallman says the study also found students were under pressure to perform.
"Things like perfectionistic thinking - tying your sense of self worth to how you perform on tasks," she said.
"So, for example, if you get a bad result on an exam feeling like you're a failure as a whole person.
"Also having a lack of coping skills. So being able to cope with frustration and disappointments when they arise."
Professor Brett McDermott is an associate professor of psychiatry at the Mater Children's Hospital in Brisbane and a spokesman for national depression group Beyond Blue.
He says the findings are consistent with previous research that shows one in 25 young people suffer depression.
"It's extremely worrying. It's a somewhat vulnerable time of life," he said.
"The intersection between moving into the adult, employed world that includes often marriage and parenting and the more cloistered time at high school.
"This is a time for major life decisions. Picking a partner is probably the most important decision of your life and this happens soon, picking your career path. And to be depressed at that time at some level must limit your opportunities."
The University of Queensland research findings come as another report has painted a bleak picture for 15 to 24-year-old job seekers.
The Foundation for Young Australians senior executive Dr Lucas Walsh says teenage males are the worst affected.
"We found that despite the fact Australia's faring quite well in the wake of the global financial crisis, the same can't be said for young people. Those worst affected are young teenage males," he said.
"We saw a large number of them become disengaged at the time of the GFC and that their disengagement from full-time education and where it remains as high now as it did in 2009.
"That's around 246,000 teenagers are not in full-time education or work."
Professor McDermott says being unemployed and socially disconnected can often lead to depression.
"A lot of people get connectedness through their work. They connect with friends at work and colleagues at work, they go to work functions and that kind of thing," he said.
"For someone to be disenfranchised from that is putting them at increased risk of depression.
"As well as obviously there is a psychological dimension where they feel they're not actually progressing with their life, they're not going forward.
"They might be developing a feeling of hopelessness, they might even be developing despair."
Comedians with disabilities perform their act in Sacramento, Calif.
If the notion weren't so dark, so to speak, the concept of a blind stand-up comedian would be funny.
At least Eric Mee (pictured) thinks so. He's a blind stand-up comic who will join funnymen Michael O'Connell (wheelchair user) and Steve Danner ("I'm a little-person comedian") in the Comedians With Disabilities Act Nov. 26 at the Sacramento Comedy Spot.
"It's been 2 1/2 years since I went blind. Of course I'm up on stage making fun of it," said Mee, 21, sounding surprised at the idea of any other option.
"Yeah, it's funny, though you can't imagine someone who's been blind since birth telling jokes. That's because they have only two facial expressions – normal and smiling. All the other expressions are socially learned. Since I did go blind later in life, I have all the facial expressions, so I don't seem to be blind. Some people think my cane is a prop.
"I get on stage and start with a joke: 'If you didn't notice the cane I'm using, I am blind. Actually, I'm visually impaired, which is like upper-class blind.' "
How do audiences react to a blind comedian?
"Some people don't think I'm really blind, and they'll come up to me after the show and say, 'I thought you were really rude for making fun of blind people.' "
Mee's jokes don't always resonate, but he's never shy about trying out his routines on classmates and staff at the Society for the Blind in Sacramento.
"We get to hear his material being worked out," said Heather Frank, the sighted executive director of the organization. "He's very gregarious."
Frank points out that any career followed by a blind person "that puts them in the public eye is a positive thing. It helps show that a blind person is really not that much different from a sighted person, except they cannot see. (Such exposure) will allow the public to be more comfortable in approaching a blind person, and help them learn more about what blindness means."
Mee tells jokes about being blind and audiences laugh, but the incident that caused his blindness was horrifying. He was attacked and stabbed in the chest with a long-bladed hunting knife in May 2008 while protecting a 7-year-old girl from a drunken assailant. He lost so much blood that his optic nerves essentially died. The assailant is serving a 12-year prison sentence for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
In 2009, Mee was honored with an Outstanding Citizen Award from the Sacramento District Attorney's Office. He now is a student at Sierra College with plans to transfer to California State University, Sacramento, next summer. He's also taking computer training classes at the Society for the Blind. Mee lives at home with his parents in Citrus Heights.
As for his eyesight, "I've been slowly progressing since (the stabbing) happened. Now I can see outlines, shadows and some colors in the inner periphery of my left eye. The doctors are amazed I'm getting any sight back. They told me I'd be blind the rest of my life. I told them, 'That's the only reason I'm getting some sight back – to spite you.' "
In typical style, Mee acted to turn his liability into an asset. Shortly after becoming blind, he began experiencing "embarrassing moments" such as running into walls and having food drop off his utensils during meals.
"I began cracking jokes about it to put a positive spin on a bad situation," he recalled. "People would tell me, 'You're really funny, and you're overcoming (your disability) really well.' "
For the next two years, friends and family urged him to put together a stand-up routine based around his blindness. "So I started recording notes that turned into jokes," Mee said.
While attending a scholarship awards ceremony sponsored by Crime Victims United of California, Mee was asked to do a stand-up segment at a fundraising dinner in January. A second one in February followed.
"I was bored over the summer, so I started writing more jokes and signed up for open-mike night at Laughs Unlimited in Old Sacramento," he said. "Since then, I've tried to hit every comedy club close to me, honing my jokes for the show at the Sacramento Comedy Spot."
It will be there that the Comedians With Disabilities Act could ignite a spark. "All three guys are phenomenal comedians, and I'd love to see them take this show on the road," said comedian Keith Lowell Jensen, the show's promoter and booking agent for the Comedy Spot. "The theme will get people's attention and we'll see what kind of excitement it generates."
"Every mike we hit, we're hoping it will be a springboard for more," said Danner of Napa.
"It's a chance for people to experience something different, and from the sources," said Sacramento's O'Connell, who has muscular dystrophy. "Every comedian has blind jokes, little-people jokes and wheelchair jokes, but we have a unique perspective into our situations. We can educate as well as entertain."
Like Mee and Danner, O'Connell breaks the ice with audiences with an initial joke referencing his disability. His is this: "A quadriplegic, a paraplegic and a double amputee don't walk into a bar ..."
British pub bars wheelchair using friends after they asked for path to accessible restroom be cleared
From The Southport Visiter in the UK:
Wheelchair users were barred from a Southport pub after asking a landlord to clear the disabled toilet.
The group of friends told of their shock at being banned from the Coronation Pub on King Street on Friday.
Disabled mother Chantelle Rea-Bradley, 47, said her friend Dawn Foster went to use the toilet but it was so cluttered she could not turn her wheelchair around.
The friends had been there the week before and complained about the toilet, so Chantelle rang in advance to let the pub landlord know they were coming back.
Chantelle, of St James Street, who has fibromyalgia, said: “I asked if anything had been done about it yet. He was quite antagonistic with me and said there was nothing wrong with the toilet.”
The toilet was still cluttered, so Tarnya Clyne, who also has fibromyalgia, complained to the landlord.
Tarnya, 26, who lives on Virginia Street, said: “He said if I had a problem to take it up with the brewery.”
They decided to leave and she complained to Greene Kings the pub’s brewery, who apologised and asked them to return.
When they went back to the pub that afternoon the landlord stopped them at the door and said he would “prefer” it if they did not come in.
Chantelle said: “I asked him if he was saying we are barred and he said yes, closed the door and went inside.”
Tarnya said: “It’s horrendous. All we want to be able to do is go to the toilet and lock the door and be treated with respect.”
Chantelle said: “We are not causing trouble we just want to be treated with respect.”
A spokesman for Greene Kings said: “We are disappointed to hear that a valued customer found the condition of the toilet facilitates in one of our pubs unacceptable.
“When staff were informed of the problem, they acted swiftly to remove any obstruction and the issue has now been resolved.
“At no point was the customer, or any of her party, excluded from the premises. They are welcome to return at any time and we apologise for any misunderstanding.”
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Company receives $50 million from U.S. Dept. of Energy to build vehicle specifically for wheelchair users
Vehicle Production Group LLC (yes, it’s a very creative name) has received a $50 million conditional loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a vehicle that is specifically design for wheelchair users. Known as the MV-1, the vehicle is designed for individual wheelchair users and uses a Ford 4.6L V8 that can run on gas or compressed natural gas.
“With this conditional commitment, the Department of Energy has demonstrated its confidence in our program and the impact that it will have in transforming a significant portion of U.S. light duty fleets to clean-burning, natural gas vehicles,” said the company’s boss David Schembri, who was previously president of Smart USA.
VPG has plans to build more than 24,000 units a year under a contract with AM General in Mishawaka, Ind. – production is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2011 with more than 900 workers involved in the project.
“This project represents an investment in innovation that will create new jobs, promote the use of alternative fuels, and help our nation maintain its competitive edge in the automotive industry,” said Secretary Chu. “It is part of a broad effort to reclaim America’s leadership in auto manufacturing – ensuring that our workers are producing the best, most innovative, most efficient vehicles in the world.”
The VPG MV-1 is handicap friendly and features a deployable access ramp with a 1,200-pound weight capacity and has a 36-inch entryway. The car can accommodate up to six passenger, including one or two wheelchair passengers.
Adults with disabilities in Illinois win first court battle for home care
A U.S. District Court judge in Illinois has certified a class action lawsuit on behalf of eight people with severe disabilities who have either aged-out of a medical program for children or who are in danger of soon reaching the age cut off.
Among those included in the suit is Olivia Welter, an Illinois woman who turned 21 on Nov. 9 and as a result faces losing the level of state-funded care that her parents say has kept her healthy and alive.
We reported about Olivia's struggle to keep her state-funded nurses, and avoid going into a nursing home, on the Nov. 8 edition of All Things Considered. And her story was a topic last week on Talk of the Nation and here on our blog.
The decision by Judge William Hibbler, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, to agree to the request of the Welters and other families to be included in a class action suit strengthens the families' attempts to force the state of Illinois to continue the care to their sons and daughters. The members of the class are suing the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
"It means there are many voices, not just one, or one family," says John Welter, Olivia's father. "And because of the interest of so many people across the country, it could have literally national impact. Having it certified as a class action law suit means the guarantees and protections that might come with winning this might be very broad and very enduring and very protective of a lot of very vulnerable people. That's our big hope and our excitement."
Just weeks ago, the Welters thought Olivia's nurses would walk out the door when she turned 21. But in late October, the family joined a lawsuit filed by the family of another disabled man who had lost services, William Hampe. The state of Illinois then agreed that it would continue the level of services that Olivia had been receiving while the case goes through the courts.
The U.S. Department of Justice has taken a stand in the case. Earlier this summer, it asked to be included as a party of interest, on behalf of the disabled plaintiffs. The lawsuit argues that it is a violation of the plaintiffs' rights, under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, to cut off important health care funding that, as a result, could force them to live in nursing homes or state institutions.
Olivia was born with multiple disabilities. She cannot speak or move and she uses a respirator to breathe and gets her food and medicines through a tube. Her parents say she responds when they walk in the room by flailing her arms and making noise and that they can tell when she is happy or in discomfort.
Olivia gets 16 hours a day of nursing care in her home under a program for medically fragile and technology dependent children. That care is expensive. The nurses alone cost $220,000 a year.
On Talk of the Nation, Molly Hoffman, the advance practice nurse at Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria, the clinic that helps care for Olivia, said that although this is expensive, it actually saves the state money. "If Olivia were to be in the hospital in the intensive care unit, which is where she would have to stay if she was hospitalized, her cost would be over $600,000 a year. So you can see the kind of money that her family is saving."
They've saved that care by — along with the nurses — providing attentive and constant care that has kept Olivia healthy and out of the hospital. Until she turned 21, the state compared the cost of her home care to the cost of living in a hospital. But when people turn 21, the state says the measure of comparison is no longer that expensive hospital, but a less expensive nursing home. The state says it will pay for the full cost of Olivia to move to a nursing home. Or it will give the family the equivalent amount of money to pay for aides to come into the house and care for Olivia. The state argues that this still provides good care and that there are caps on how much it is allowed to spend in the adult program.
John and Tamara Welter doubt that their daughter would get the care she needs to survive in a nursing home — if they could even find one that would take such a severely disabled adult. If they lose their suit against the state, they are prepared to do more of the caregiving at home by themselves. They already care for Olivia the eight hours a day that the nurses are gone. The state expects them to hire less expensive personal care aides. But the Welters note that, by state law, aides are not allowed to give Olivia her complex medicines or put her trache tube back in if it were to fall out in an emergency.
Many states face similar dilemmas trying to fund expensive care to children and adults who rely upon ventilators and other technology. States around the country face record budget deficits and Medicaid costs are among the biggest causes. Illinois alone faces a $15 billion budget deficit this year
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Amputees with high-tech prosthetics struggle to better educate TSA about their trip through airport security
The complaints are piling up about how the TSA is handling airport security. But if you think you have it bad, try walking through an airport checkpoint on the mechanical legs of one of the nearly 2 million Americans who use prosthetics.
Here's a travel scenario: You're flying home to visit the parents for Thanksgiving -- a short flight, some 500 miles away. You arrive at the airport 90 minutes early -- —it is, after all, holiday travel season. After showing your ID and boarding pass, you get to the screening area. You pull out your laptop -- and your iPad, just because -- and place them in separate bins.
You walk through a backscatter scanner and get the wand. Judging by the looks of the TSA employees and the constant beeping, you're not passing either test. "You see," you try to explain to them, "I'm wearing prosthetic legs. I'm handicapped."
This is where the process slows down.
Swabs are taken immediately in and around all prosthetics to detect for bomb-making material. Then you wait. The next step is to go under the CastScope. Sometimes there is a certified employee on the premises. But often, you have to wait for employees to hunt one down.
Once the operator is found, you go under the machine, prosthetic limbs still on. They take X-ray images on the front, back and sides -- about 10 X-rays per below-the-knee prosthetic, more if your prosthesis has a mechanical knee. After these X-rays pass inspection, you're free to fly.
For Jeffrey J. Cain, the chief of family medicine at the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colo., and a below-the-knee double amputee, this is a typical encounter with airport security, by the book. The problem? It rarely goes down like this.
"There's such variability in screening people with prosthetics," Cain says. Sometimes an amputee gets a pat-down after the backscatter scan (which isn't required); sometimes he or she is asked to remove a limb; and always, Cain says, there is confusion: "It's like being pulled over by a policeman -- there's only one correct answer, and it's not that of the police department; it's that of the person in front of you."
Cain is not alone in his grievances. A survey of 7,300 amputees conducted by the Amputee Coalition of America in June showed that travelers with limb loss have been subjected to inconsistent, unfair, abusive and often embarrassing screenings by TSA employees.
According to the Amputee Coalition, the TSA is aware of the problem. Recently, a TSA representative sat down with the Coalition and talked about possible solutions: giving amputees a card to be moved ahead in the line more quickly, better notifying amputees as to what to expect, and aiming for greater standardization.
"At this point, we're continuing to have a dialogue with the TSA," says Cain, who is a director of the board for the Coalition. "My hope is that there will ultimately be a way to prescreen a flyer so that the device could be certified in a standardized way. I, for one, have a license to practice medicine, and am a certified pilot and an Eagle Scout. I'd like to be able to precertify."
But for now, Cain says, prescreening for amputees is not on the table. Furthermore, as prosthetic technology rapidly advances, some doubt the TSA's ability to keep up with it and communicate changes effectively across the country's airports.
If consistency means knowing what prosthetics are on the market, TSA employees have their work cut out for them. Prosthetic technologies are advancing rapidly. Ten years ago, the standard for amputees was mechanical -- and for many it still is: These limbs usually use springs and elastics to mimic tendons and are controlled primarily by muscles on the remaining parts of the limb.
Since the early 2000s, microprocessors and more heavily "powered" prosthetics have made their way into the market, usually with lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries that assist the amputee's movement. Actuators, accelerometers and small computers now help limbs self-adjust while walking, holding objects and even lifting.
Ossur's Proprio foot (pictured), for example, has sensors that detect ankle motion more than 1000 times a second. A microprocessor uses that information to activate the best response to the next step. The iWalk, created by Breakthrough Award winner Hugh Herr, takes this design further, bringing power into the ankle so that it not only senses its environment to make the best next step, but reacts to it with load-bearing servos.
These emerging technologies are giving the TSA trouble. Peggy Chenoweth, a below-the-knee amputee, now wears Proprio Foot, a microprocessor-powered foot that has been for sale in various forms for nearly five years. The current version of Proprio, which she wears now, has been for sale for months. But this high-tech device consistently gets her blank looks.
"I'm sick of taking six X-rays and then having to explain what they're seeing," Chenowith says. "There's an issue with these high-tech prosthetics. Obviously, I'm wearing a high-tech device and I need to be screened -- but authorities need to keep up on the technology. I can understand [the confusion with] prototype devices, but the Proprio foot has been on the market a while."
The TSA couldn't be reached for comment, but its blog and websites say the extra half-hour delay for additional scans is necessary. Cain does not fight this point. "There are people who may use accessibility devices to smuggle weapons," Cain says, "and the TSA recognizes this." What the Amputee Coalition is asking for is a little consistency in its safety measures -- and, as has been noted all over this week, a little more dignity.
UK report: Television dramas too often portray characters with mental health problems as "dangerous"
Television dramas too often portray characters with mental health problems as "dangerous", according to a study of peak-time programmes.
Almost half (45%) of fictional characters with mental illness have storylines depicting them as violent or posing a threat to others, says a report by Shift, the campaign to tackle the stigma associated with mental issues.
In addition 63% of references to mental health in TV soaps and drama were "pejorative, flippant or unsympathetic". Terms included: "crackpot", "a sad little psycho", "basket case" , "where did you get her from, Care in the Community?" and "he was looney tunes".
The study, by the Glasgow Media Group, examined three months of drama programmes on British terrestrial channels between 4pm and 11pm from 1 January this year. It found 74 episodes from 34 different programmes contained mental illness-related story lines.Of those story lines, there were 33 instances of violence towards others, including a character in Channel 4's Shameless attacking her partner, and an escaped schizophrenic patient in Channel 5's CSI:NY killing people to avenge his girlfriend's murder.
There were also 48 instances of additional types of harm, including the Emmerdale character Sally Spode drugging and sleeping with a vicar to break up his family. Some 53 instances of self-harm were also recorded.
"Some of this study suggests that mental illness is still used as an easy source of violent tragedy or as something to poke fun at," said the report, called Making a Drama out of a Crisis .
"Mad and Bad is still alive and well on television, whether it is 'Psycho Sally' in Emmerdale or the sight of Chandler in Friends (pictured) announcing: 'Ding dong the psycho's gone.'"
Acknowledging programme makers were challenged in balancing accurate depictions of mental illness with the need to provide compelling television, the report stresses the need for more "everyday reality" rather than "axe-wielding maniac".
"Fictional film characters like Hitchcock's Norman Bates in Psycho have long established the idea of the 'mentally-ill' as crazed and dangerous in the public mind. Television has been doing the same thing for decades," said Professor Greg Philo, report author and director of the Glasgow Media Group.
"Of course, the reality is that the vast majority of people with mental health problems are not violent.
"But even soaps commended for raising awareness of mental health ill-health, such as EastEnders' character Stacey Branning's struggle with bipolar disorder, end in violence – she murders Queen Vic landlord Archie Mitchell."John Yorke, BBC controller of drama, told researchers the impact of Angie Watts's attempted suicide in EastEnders more than 20 years ago, which led to criticism over fears of copycat suicides, provided a "cataclysmic change" in the industry over the potential effects of drama on viewers. It was a "big wake up call".
The study noted increased use of telephone helplines or websites after episodes that featured mental health. One example was the peak in hits to the Manic Depression Fellowship website which matched the story twists in EastEnders high profile bipolar disorder story.And TV drama had the power to challenge "stigma and prejudice", said the report, published ahead of Monday night's Mind Mental Health Media Awards.
Chief executive of mental health charity Mind, Paul Farmer, said progress had been made in recent years, highlighting EastEnders, Shameless and Doctors as among those demonstrating a commitment to developing "realistic, sensitive and dramatic story lines". "It is also clear, however, that there is still much work to be done until we are at a stage where accurate depictions are the norm rather than the exception," said Farmer.
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