Stupid Is As Stupid Does

It's heartbreaking that Muslim parents in Pakistan are fighting (and killing) those who would administer the polio vaccine to that country's children.  While we have to lament the foolishness, we also must admit the source of the anger is to some extent understandable.

From the New York Times, via Eschaton:

Usman, who limps on a leg bowed by the polio he caught as a child, made sure that his first three children were protected from the disease, but he turned away vaccinators when his youngest was born.

He was furious that the Central Intelligence Agency, in its hunt for Osama bin Laden, had staged a fake vaccination campaign, and infuriated by American drone strikes, one of which, he said, had struck the son of a man he knew, blowing off his head. He had come to see the war on polio, the longest, most expensive disease eradication effort in history, as a Western plot.

In January, his 2-year-old son, Musharaf, became the first child worldwide to be crippled by polio this year.

“I know now I made a mistake,” said Usman, 32, who, like many in his Pashtun tribe, uses only one name. “But you Americans have caused pain in my community. Americans pay for the polio campaign, and that’s good. But you abused a humanitarian mission for a military purpose.”

Anger like his over American foreign policy has led to a disastrous setback for the global effort against polio. In December, nine vaccinators were shot dead here, and two Taliban commanders banned vaccination in their areas, saying the vaccinations could resume only if drone strikes ended. In January, 10 vaccinators were killed in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated north.    [Emphasis added]

The temptation is to feel some righteous indignation at those foolish Pakistanis putting their children at risk over a CIA trick.  Well, that temptation should be resisted.  We have a lot of people in this country doing the same thing, or nearly the same thing:  holding an unscientific belief about vaccinations of all sorts, including polio.  I posted on this two years ago, and things haven't changed much since then.

It's about childhood vaccinations, the ones that keep diseases like chicken pox and polio and measles and whooping cough under control, if not completely eradicated in our population. California requires proof of those vaccinations before allowing a child to be enrolled in school. This year the state requires that students in 7th grade through high school to bring proof of whooping cough boosters, a requirement necessitated by the resurgence of that illness in the state last year.

We know childhood vaccinations work, yet some parents still resist. Sometimes parents refuse the vaccinations for their children on religious grounds, and the state does allow that as an exception. Sometimes the refusal is based on the fact that the child has a physical condition (e.g., an impaired immune system) which precludes the vaccinations. The state also allows an exemption for this as well.

Too often, however, the excuses proffered are not so sensible. Many still believe that the vaccinations cause autism in children, even though the study which made that assertion has now been thoroughly debunked. Yet others object to those vaccinations being mandated by the government as a despotic intrusion into their lives, even though the whole point of the mandate is to provide for the general welfare of the population, a goal inherent in government.    [Emphasis added]

As I mentioned in that earlier post, when I was a kid we didn't have vaccinations for polio, whooping cough, chicken pox, and measles.  I got whooping cough, chicken pox, and measles, as did my sister (who could have died because her  chicken pox lined her nose and throat).  A neighbor girl got polio and we were unable to visit her until Dr. Jonas Salk came up with his miracle vaccine for that devastating disease.  We saw a wasted little body in an iron lung.  The miracle came too late for her.

Yet we still have people who know better than the scientists when it comes to vaccinations.  Several studies have debunked the autism/vaccination link.  What's even worse, we even give them popular platforms to espouse their opinion (like "The View" on television).  And here's the crusher:  people who can't have vaccinations because of an impaired immune system depend on the rest of us to be vaccinated so they are not exposed to these preventable diseases.

It's not just Pakistanis who are being stupid.  We've done our fair share ourselves.

Elder Belle's Blessing: Michael Hiltzig

(Photograph by Patrice Carlton and published at National Geographic.)

This edition of Elder Belle's Blessing, an award given from time to time to those who enhance elders' rights and benefits, goes to Michael Hiltzig whose latest column delineates the sham of those who want to cut Social Security and Medicare because both are unfair to the children of the country.

Here's a phrase you can expect to be hearing a lot in the national debate over fiscal policy, as we move past the "sequester," which is the crisis du jour, and toward the budget cliff/government shutdown deadline looming at the end of March:

"Generational theft."

The core idea the term expresses is that we're spending so much more on our seniors than our children that future generations are being cheated. An important corollary is that the government debt we incur today will come slamming down upon the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. ...

So here's the truth about the "generational theft" theme: It's wrong on the numbers and wrong on the implications.

Let's start with that 7-to-1 spending ratio on seniors versus children. Among the flaws in the calculation is that the vast majority of government dollars spent on children comes from state and local governments, which pay most of the cost of education. On a per capita basis, state and local spending on kids swamps the federal government's spending 8 to 1.

Moreover, there are twice as many children 18 and under as seniors 65 and over (this 2008 figure also comes from the Urban Institute report). Put the numbers together and you discover that spending by governments at all levels in 2008 came to about $1 trillion on seniors and $936 billion on children. In other words, very close to 1 to 1. ...

In other ways, treating Social Security and Medicare spending on the one hand and spending on kids on the other as though they're opposite sides of a zero-sum game is just an act of ideological legerdemain aimed at undermining those programs.
If America wants to spend more on children, it's plenty rich enough to do so without eating away at the income of their grandparents. The money can come from the defense budget, farm supports or dozens of other places, even higher income taxes.

Let's not forget, too, that the people who will really suffer from gutting Social Security won't be today's seniors, who will escape the worst of the cutbacks — they'll be today's young people, for whom Social Security would become much less supportive when they retire.   [Emphasis added]

Oh, it's theft alright, but the thievery is being perpetrated against today's and tomorrow's elders, not by them.  The whole point is to destroy both programs for the benefit of the Wall Street Banksters and mega-insurance companies, and the children and elders be damned.

Go read all of Michael's column.  You'll see why he earned yet another Elder Belle's Blessing.

Dis-Graced

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

The big news in Los Angeles this past week has been the discipline the current Roman Catholic Archbishop has placed upon his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, for his protection of priests engaged in sexual abuse of members of their parishes, many of them children.  This was an extraordinary move by the Archbishop because in terms of the ecclesiastic hierarchy, Mahony as a Cardinal outranks Archbishop Gomez.  The move was occasioned by a court ruling that files on the issue be presented without redaction of any sort and those files are devastating.

David Horsey has a very temperate column up on the issue, one that I don't quite agree with.

For a decade now, the sex abuse scandal has rocked the Roman Catholic Church in city after city. The scandal in Los Angeles led to a settlement between the church and 500 abuse victims in 2007, but the archdiocese had resisted opening personnel files. Now, though, the files are wide open and the stark evidence of a cover-up has brought to disgrace one of the most powerful and admired men in the church, Cardinal Mahony. The good works of a lifetime are tainted by the fact that he saw evil, had the authority to stop it and, instead, tried to keep it in the darkness by giving offending priests out-of-state assignments and barring them from talking to therapists who might blow the whistle on their misdeeds.

It goes without saying that the Catholic hierarchy from Rome on down has long been engaged in a cynical effort to protect the institution of the church by hiding pedophile priests. Still, there is also an element of Christian idealism at work here. At the heart of the faith is the principle that any sinner, no matter how wicked, can be redeemed by God’s forgiveness. That goes for priests, too. In the context of church teaching, there is logic in allowing clergy to repent and ask forgiveness, rather than turning them over to the police. But it is a naïve logic that depends on a miracle cure for a disorder that even years of therapy cannot always remedy. ...

Of course, the files describe things that happened in the 1980s and the church insists steps have been taken to prevent such things from happening today. We all pray that is true. But, as they say in politics, the cover-up is more damaging than the crime, at least to the powerful men who try to keep terrible secrets. Cardinal Mahony is the latest to learn this lesson.   [Emphasis added]

It is hard for me to believe that "Christian idealism" was at work.  I think it was more a case of protecting the ecclesiastical authority of the church from top to bottom.  Priests who uttered a phrase deemed inconsistent with church teachings received a harsher punishment than those sexually abusing children (both boys and girls) and women.  The sexual abusers were just shuffled off to another parish, another state, with no warning to the parish, thereby enabling them to continue the behavior.  Roger Mahony just washed his hands of the problem, just as another authority did 2,000 years ago.

Jesus wept.

Post-Birth Abortion

I've put off writing this post for just about a week because I was completely flummoxed by the whole issue. A fellow Atriot threw out this link to an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. I've read the article a dozen times and I see the logic and reasoning, but it still seems wrong from the get-go.

I'll warn you now that it's not easy reading, but it is decipherable. Essentially, the authors posit that if a baby is born with disabling conditions which would have been grounds for abortion had the mother known about them, or, if the mother's condition has changed which if the new condition had existed earlier she would have aborted the child, then the new-born could be "aborted".

Here's some of the argument:

Severe abnormalities of the fetus and risks for the physical and/or psychological health of the woman are often cited as valid reasons for abortion. Sometimes the two reasons are connected, such as when a woman claims that a disabled child would represent a risk to her mental health. However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children,[footnote] regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself.

A serious philosophical problem arises when the same conditions that would have justified abortion become known after birth. In such cases, we need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human. ...

The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

What follows these passages is a closely reasoned argument which attempts to define just what a "person" actually is. Based on the argument, the authors conclude the following:

If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. So, if you ask one of us if we would have been harmed, had our parents decided to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is ‘no’, because they would have harmed someone who does not exist (the ‘us’ whom you are asking the question), which means no one. And if no one is harmed, then no harm occurred.

I was stuck on the whole issue, especially since there really is no way at present to gauge just when consciousness and self-consciousness arises. Further, even though I saw the red-flag when the authors rejected the term "infanticide" in favor of the term "post-birth abortion", I struggled with a way to somehow rebut their arguments completely.

I am still struggling, but I did discern one concept the authors did gloss over, perhaps even ignored: the fact that while in the womb, the fetus affects the physical functioning of the woman who carries it and who must go through the potentially risky procedure of carrying and then delivering the child. In that respect a fetus is not just like a newborn. It is for that reason abortion is not the same as infanticide, no matter what fancy tag replaces the latter. It is also for that reason that I believe the mother has the right to make the decision on aborting the fetus.

That difference, however, does not resolve the issue, especially when the child is born with significant physical abnormalities which will limit the child to an extremely limited existence (days, weeks, months). That issue still needs the kind of examination this article is calling for and which is needed.

I welcome your comments.

Things That Make You Go Yes!

And now for a little good news.

The state of Minnesota has decided to do something to promote early childhood education. A multifaceted program to enhance literacy, starting with the preschool, is being introduced with funding from multiple sources.

Early literacy is emerging as the new front in the battle to narrow Minnesota's academic achievement gap between white and nonwhite students -- which persists as one of the largest gaps in the nation. From policymakers to schools and businesses, the urgency to ramp up reading has intensified as Minnesota schools grow increasingly diverse, particularly with more non-native English speakers. ...

Like states from Iowa to Florida, Minnesota's literacy push is centered on ensuring reading well by third grade -- a critical year when children shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." In 2011, about one in five Minnesota third-graders failed to read at basic levels, or nearly 13,000 students. Emerging research on brain development, a stronger reliance on student test scores and the state's latest goal to narrow the achievement gap to half by 2018 are further driving efforts. [Emphasis added]

Being able to read is a critical skill for students, which is (I know) stating the obvious, yet in these years of "No Child Left Behind" and teaching to the test this skill is too often ignored. The place to start then is early in children's lives. Somebody finally gets it.

A child who isn't proficient in reading by third grade is four times more likely to drop out of high school than a proficient reader, according to a 2011 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. ...

Legislators have taken note. Starting this fall, schools have to report reading scores to their communities and have a specific literacy plan. They will receive $85 for each third-grader who passes the state reading test or shows growth in reading -- part of up to $48 million in literacy incentive aid. Legislators also dedicated $5.5 million more to the Minnesota Reading Corps, a nine-year-old AmeriCorps program whose literacy tutors work with struggling 3-year-olds through third-graders.

What is such stunning good news is that it's not just the state government which is willing to put money where it counts, so are the Minnesota business and nonprofit communities:

The growing momentum is prompting state agencies, nonprofits, businesses and schools to collaborate more than ever.

Leaders of three state agencies are teaming up in the Children's Cabinet, a collaboration that helped the state score a competitive $45 million Race to the Top early education grant announced in December. Target, Cargill, General Mills and Medtronic combined last year to give $13 million to Minneapolis schools over three years, with Target's $6 million going toward reading initiatives.

Go read the entire, rather lengthy article and discover what a little common sense and a lot of dedication can accomplish. Then match it with the education efforts in your community and state. If your schools aren't matching up, do the right thing and ask your school board and state legislators to do something about it.

Hillary Clinton was right: it does take a village to raise a child.

Politics As Usual

Kathleen Sebelius, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has over-ruled the FDA in making "Plan B" pills available to women under the age of 17 without a prescription.

For the first time ever, the Health and Human Services secretary publicly overruled the Food and Drug Administration, refusing Wednesday to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold over the counter, including to young teenagers. The decision avoided what could have been a bruising political battle over parental control and contraception during a presidential election season. [Emphasis added]

This moves comes from an administration that promised in 2008 to stop ignoring science in favor of political expediency. That Plan B has been demonstrated to halve pregnancy if used properly apparently doesn't matter to Barack Obama when an election campaign is underway. That Plan B would obviate the need for abortion doesn't either. Rather than acknowledge that women under 17 just might be having sex (consensual or not), Mr. Obama would rather avoid the battle.

What is so particularly disturbing is the effect this political calculation will have particularly on younger women, according to medical experts:

Several major medical groups reacted swiftly Wednesday to denounce the federal government's decision to limit over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptives for younger teens. ...

The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine and American Society for Reproductive Medicine said Sebelius made the wrong call.

“As advocates for the health and well-being of all young people, the AAP recommends that adolescents postpone sexual activity until they are fully ready for the emotional, physical and financial consequences of sex,” said Dr. Robert Block, AAP president. “However, as physicians who care for our nation’s children, it is our responsibility to protect the health of our teenage patients, and an unintended pregnancy can have significant implications for adolescents’ physical and emotional health.” ...

The ASRM issued a statement from Dolores J. Lamb, the organization's president, that said in part: "We are very disappointed that Secretary Sebelius opted to insert herself into what should be a scientific decision made by the experts at FDA. The data are clear that emergency contraception can be safely used by adolescent women without requiring a prescription. Sadly, it appears that once again our leaders are putting political expediency ahead of reproductive health." [Emphasis added]

I guess some things are just more important than the health of women of any age, but particularly younger women. Things like four more years of power, four more years of doing the non-controversial, four more years of taking the easy path rather than the right one.

So much for change.

Not Just The Poorest Of The Poor Neighborhoods

Newt Gingrich raised howls of protest for his comments on putting kids from poor neighborhoods to work cleaning their schools (see my post here). I wonder what he'll have to say with about the news contained in this article coming from the Midwest.

More Minnesota students are signing on for free or reduced-price meals, as middle-class families coping with cutbacks and foreclosures are becoming first-time users of the subsidized National School Lunch Program.

Reflecting a surge seen nationally, nearly 33,000 Minnesota kids have joined the program in the past two years. Nationwide, student poverty rose from 59.3 percent in 2007 to 65.3 percent in 2010.

"Middle-class families who never thought they'd be dealing with this kind of hardship and poverty are now having to face it," said University of Minnesota economics Prof. Ben Senauer, who's researched several metro-area school districts' school lunch data. "This is the new face of poverty." [Emphasis added]

It isn't just the "poorest of the poor" urban areas that need help. Job losses have affected the suburbs and even the fancy exurbs. People who never dreamed they'd have trouble feeding their families are now signing up for the lunch program so that their children get at least one meal a day during the week. Some schools, on their own initiative, also provide backpacks to the kids on Fridays so that they get some nutrition over the weekend.

"This is the new face of poverty."

Indeed.

Granny Bird Award: Those Who Knew And Did Nothing

This edition of the award, given from time to time to individuals or groups who adversely affect the rights and interests of the elders, goes to all the people who knew that Jerry Sandusky was molesting children and did nothing to stop him. It goes to everyone at Penn State who knew, to the public school employees who certainly suspected, to the donors to his "child care" organization who may have availed themselves of Sandusky's services: all of them. Their excuse that "No one said no to Jerry Sandusky" is appalling.

No one said no to Jerry Sandusky.

That's the underlying message from those closest to the alleged victims in the child-molestation scandal that has engulfed Pennsylvania State University.

After all, Jerry Sandusky, once the heir apparent to legendary football coach Joe Paterno, had been an assistant football coach at Penn State, a longtime community volunteer, and the founder of a well-known charity to help troubled youth.

Last Saturday, after a multiyear grand jury investigation, Sandusky was arrested on charges of sex abuse of eight minors from 1994 to 2009.

I have avoided comment on this horrific story for many reasons, chief of which was my profound disgust and heartbreak over the details as they slowly began to emerge. People freakin' knew, they knew. But Sandusky was a big shot at the big shot football program at the big shot university. They let him slide. They protected him. They let the children suffer.

Like all elders I know, I am deeply concerned for the generations which will follow me. I may not have children or grandchildren, but my friends and relatives do. I care about those children and all children. They represent the future, the continuation of our species even after I'm gone. I don't like the thought of all that the next generations will have to face because of our misfeasance. And I hate the thought that these children will have an even heavier burden because of the malfeasance of the perpetrator(s) and their enablers.

May God forgive them all. Quite frankly, right now, I cannot.

Yes, I'm Cranky

Whether it's the heat or just the climate in general, I find I'm down to my last nerve, and it's getting frayed rapidly. This editorial in the Los Angeles Times surely didn't help matters any.

The Times runs one just like it every year about this time as the summer winds down and people start preparing their kids to return to school. The subject matter isn't what galls me, nor is the way the editorial board treats the subject. In fact, I consider this kind of editorial a necessary public service, and I appreciate that it's being performed. What grates on me is that it has to be performed year after year.

It's about childhood vaccinations, the ones that keep diseases like chicken pox and polio and measles and whooping cough under control, if not completely eradicated in our population. California requires proof of those vaccinations before allowing a child to be enrolled in school. This year the state requires that students in 7th grade through high school to bring proof of whooping cough boosters, a requirement necessitated by the resurgence of that illness in the state last year.

We know childhood vaccinations work, yet some parents still resist. Sometimes parents refuse the vaccinations for their children on religious grounds, and the state does allow that as an exception. Sometimes the refusal is based on the fact that the child has a physical condition (e.g., an impaired immune system) which precludes the vaccinations. The state also allows an exemption for this as well.

Too often, however, the excuses proffered are not so sensible. Many still believe that the vaccinations cause autism in children, even though the study which made that assertion has now been thoroughly debunked. Yet others object to those vaccinations being mandated by the government as a despotic intrusion into their lives, even though the whole point of the mandate is to provide for the general welfare of the population, a goal inherent in government.

Here's a portion of that editorial that bears repeating. Again.

As The Times has reported, there were nearly 9,500 cases of whooping cough last year in California alone, the most in 65 years. Cases of other diseases — measles and Hib — are rising, though in far smaller numbers. Many measles cases are "imported" from countries where the disease is more prevalent, often by unvaccinated U.S. residents who return from foreign travel.

It would be one thing if these diseases affected only the children whose parents object to vaccines. But if those children get sick, they put many others at risk, including those who cannot be immunized for medical reasons, who don't respond to vaccines or who aren't old enough to be inoculated. (Of the 10 infants who died of whooping cough in California last year, nine were too young to have been vaccinated.) All of these children are endangered by the unfounded fears of a small minority of parents. Public health depends on "herd immunity" — the inoculation of enough people to keep a disease from the larger community.

Maybe there will come a day when running this editorial annually won't be necessary. Unfortunately, I doubt that day will come during my life time.

All Are Precious In His Sight

The title of this post comes from a children's song:

"Jesus loves the little children,
All the little children of the world.
Black or yellow, red or white,
All are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world."

Unfortunately, there are those who don't love all the children of the world, who allow unspeakable things to happen to them if they are too different. Those who are gay or look like they are gay are prime targets for such people.

I was stunned by this article in Mother Jones about the epidemic of suicides among young people in Minnesota, stunned. And not in a good way.

So stunned that I was tempted to reproduce the entire article because once you start reading it you can't stop. I urge you to click on the link and read it. Here's a taste to get you started.

The first was TJ. Then came Samantha, Aaron, Nick, and Kevin. Over the past two years, a total of nine teenagers have committed suicide in a Minnesota school district represented by Rep. Michele Bachmann—the latest in May—and many more students have attempted to take their lives. State public health officials have labeled the area a "suicide contagion area" because of the unusually high death rate.

Some of the victims were gay, or perceived to be by their classmates, and many were reportedly bullied. And the anti-gay activists who are some of the congresswoman's closest allies stand accused of blocking an effective response to the crisis and fostering a climate of intolerance that allowed bullying to flourish. Bachmann, meanwhile, has been uncharacteristically silent on the tragic deaths that have roiled her district—including the high school that she attended. ...

There's no sure way of knowing why any of the kids took their own lives, but gay rights activists quickly honed in on one factor they saw as contributing to an unhealthy climate for at-risk kids. Anoka-Hennepin has a policy on the books known colloquially as "no homo promo," which dates in back to the mid-1990s. Back then, after several emotional school board meetings, the district essentially wiped gay people out of the school health curriculum. There could be no discussion of homosexuality, even with regard to HIV and AIDS, and the school board adopted a formal policy that stated school employees could not teach that homosexuality was a "normal, valid lifestyle."

Later the policy was changed to require school staff to remain neutral on issues of homosexuality if they should come up in class, a change that critics said fostered confusion among teachers and contributed to their inability to address bullying and harassment, or to even ask reasonable questions about some of the issues the kids were struggling with, like sexual orientation. Both policies were put into place at the behest of conservative religious activists who have been among Bachmann's biggest supporters in the district. They include the Minnesota Family Council (MFC), and its local affiliate, the Parents Action League, which has lobbied to put discredited "reparative therapy" materials in schools.

That's the sort of counseling reportedly practiced by Bachmann & Associates, the mental health clinics run by Michele Bachmann's husband, Marcus. The clinics reportedly counsel people on how to "pray away the gay" to become straight. Before entering politics, Bachmann served as the education advisor to the MFC-affiliated Minnesota Family Institute, a relationship she has continued. This spring, she headlined a fundraising dinner for MFC, along with Newt Gingrich.

Bullying the gay away if praying it away doesn't work: hey, these kids are gay (or might be), what's the problem?

The problem is that they are our children and if they are struggling in any fashion with their sexual identity or any other adolescent issue, the peer bullying can be, and clearly is in many cases, devastating, so devastating that suicide is the only option these tormented kids can see. And the school district is doing nothing, NOTHING, to stop it. Neither is Michele Bachman.

May God forgive those committing this evil. Right now, I find that I cannot.

Meanwhile ...

As noted by many of my friends, the news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden has had all sorts of salutary effects, not the least of which are the bumping off the national radar screen the incessant reporting on Donald Trump's latest whinges and the millionth rehash of the styles on display at the royal wedding. But, those shiny keys also has bumped off news that actually have some import in the real world, among them this story from the Sacramento Bee.

Because of budgetary problems, the Sacramento county has had to cut funding for the First 5 Program, one that serves children up to age five with programs to enhance their health and education. The program itself is funded by cigarette taxes, but the money has been diverted from this program by the state to meet budget shortfalls.

The First 5 Sacramento Commission on Monday slashed $48.5 million from programs serving young children in the county.

The cuts were necessary because the state recently took $1 billion in reserve funds from First 5 commissions across California to help balance the state budget.

First 5 Sacramento responded mostly by reducing appropriations by a quarter to one-half for a range of programs over the next five years. [Emphasis added]

Here are some of the cuts to the program:

A program to add fluoridation to waters in the county to stave off tooth decay;

A breast-feeding program run under the auspices of the federal Women, Infants, and Children agency;

A school-readiness program to prepare youngsters for education, comparable to the pre-schools many of the families could not afford.

And, of course, with the cuts in these programs, the county First 5 program won't need as many staffers, so employees are being laid off now.

This sort of scenario is being played out not only at the local level, but also across the state and the nation, all because tax hikes are off the table, especially when it comes to the privileged, and because deficit spending has become the boogieman du jour.

But the health and welfare of poorer children aren't nearly as interesting as Donald Trump's hair piece or of Kate Middleton Windsor's wedding gown, much less the death of an international nemesis. So we won't be hearing much about it.

The Consequences of Stupid

Earlier this month I posted on the potential effects of parents' decisions not to vaccinate their children from diseases that we could wipe out. Over the last two days, both the Los Angeles Times and the NY Times have published articles on the consequences of the failure to properly vaccinate infants and children. The stimulus for such coverage was the announcement by officials in California that an epidemic of pertussis ("whooping cough") has struck the state.

First, from the Los Angeles Times:

Whooping cough is a bacterial disease that infects the respiratory system. There have been 910 confirmed cases of the highly contagious disease in California between Jan. 1 and June 15. During the same time last year, 219 cases were confirmed.

The high season for pertussis is July and August (because of the hot weather), so the figure will probably rise to thousands of cases in short order. While there have been only five deaths so far (infants), that figure will also climb. The disease is highly contagious, which makes the spread of the disease to even higher figures predictable.

The NY Times article cites statistics which back up the threat of that spread:

Periodic outbreaks of pertussis are not uncommon. The disease is endemic worldwide, and some 5,000 to 7,000 cases are reported in the United States in a normal year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Epidemics occur every three to five years in the United States, with the most recent in 2005, when there were more than 25,000 reported cases nationwide, and nearly 3,200 in California, where 7 people died.

The NY Times article, while noting the need for "booster" shots for families of infants (the initial vaccination loses its potency within 5 years), also gets a cheap shot in on Mexican immigrants, quoting one California official who suggests that a lot of the cases were among that demographic. Oddly, that same article fails to note that many non-Mexican and non-poor parents are refusing to get their children vaccinated because of a misguided belief that vaccinations cause autism (see my earlier post, linked to above). If you're going to blame those from countries that don't promote child health care the way this country claims to, then at least a nod in the general direction of those parents who should know better should have been made.

Either/or, one thing is clear: it's going to be a dangerously long and hot summer, and infants and children are going to suffer.

More Stupid

When I was a kid in Milwaukee, I had to walk to school, all uphill, both ways, even during blizzards when drifts reached to the second story of our home. And there were no vaccines for measles, mumps, pertussis, chicken pox, and polio.

The first statement, of course, is not true (the drifts never got that high). The second statement, however, is true. I had the measles, mumps, whooping cough, and a mild case of chicken pox. My younger sister had pretty much the same experience with childhood diseases, but her case of chicken pox was much more serious and she could have died. The little girl on the corner had polio, and even though she convalesced at home, none of our parents would let us visit her for fear we would contract that awful disease.

Thankfully, effective vaccines have since been developed for each, and we've come very close to wiping out those child-killing diseases, at least in this country. That, however, may not always be the case. For some inexplicable reason (at least to me), normally rational and caring parents have bought into the unscientific rumor that vaccinations can cause autism in children. They refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated.

Pamela Nguyen, a resident physician in pediatrics at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, up against such a parent, and she reflects on just what that means in a spirited opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Nguyen has never actually seen a case of the measles, but she notes that at least one case has been reported in Los Angeles County. And there are other reported cases in the state.

Measles is a serious public health threat. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disease remains the leading cause of vaccine-preventable deaths in children. In 2007, there were 197,000 measles deaths worldwide, 90% of them in children younger than 5. That is nearly 450 deaths every day.

A study published in the April issue of Pediatrics examined a 2008 measles outbreak in San Diego. The index case was a 7-year-old unvaccinated child who was exposed to the virus while abroad. This case resulted in 839 exposed persons, 11 actual cases (all in unvaccinated children) and the hospitalization of an infant too young to be vaccinated. In total, the outbreak cost the public more than $175,000, which would have covered the costs of measles vaccinations for almost 180,000 children. ...

The parents in the San Diego outbreak also didn't vaccinate their children because they were afraid of autism. But exhaustive study has found no link between autism and vaccines. It's puzzling why well-educated, upper- and middle-income parents worry so much about a connection that doesn't exist while they ignore the very real risks of not vaccinating. Vaccine refusal is creating large reservoirs of susceptibility, primarily in private and charter schools that are generally free from state restrictions. I worry that we will soon see just how real that risk is. In addition to the case of measles, there also have been nine cases of mumps reported in L.A. County this year. [Emphasis added]

It is indeed puzzling why parents would make such a decision. It is even more puzzling why the state's health authorities are allowing such decisions to be made so lightly and with no real basis. Am I suggesting that the state go all Nazi on such stupid parents? I guess I am. Most people don't have any objection to the state going all Nazi on drunk drivers, mainly because they recognize that the drunk driver is a menace to other people as well as to him/herself. I think the same issue is in play here, as does Dr. Nguyen.

By choosing not to vaccinate, parents put not only their children but other peoples' children in harm's way. Immuno-compromised children, infants and pregnant women cannot be vaccinated, so they are put at increased risk when those who can be vaccinated are not.

Exactly so.

Growing Families In Our Future

In times of pinched finances and meltdown of working people's budgets, what would make the State Legislature in Texas pump up the number of mouths to feed? In case you haven't guessed by now, the answer is right wing ideology.

In its usual courtship of the far right mantra - birth control is evil - our state has been cutting funding for family planning clinics. That doesn't include just those clinics that offer abortions in cases where it is a medical necessity. All that qualifies family planning as an object of aversion is its name. If Texans want to keep their family size within their budget, courtesy of their wingnut fellow voters, they won't have sufficient help from their own state funds.

Clinics that have been providing family-planning services find themselves on the losing end of a fight over how the state can best provide birth control, screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and other services.

Patrice Capan said her Denton clinic was effectively performing complete physical exams on patients such as Azucena Perez - until the state cut her funding.

And many clinic operators and their advocates see anti-abortion politics at work, though lawmakers who have reorganized the state's family-planning budget say their goal is to provide more comprehensive health care, not push an agenda.

Over the last four years, lawmakers have diverted millions of dollars from the specialty clinics such as Planned Parenthood to expand family-planning services at community health centers, which provide a broader range of services. In the current legislative session, lawmakers may give back some money to the specialty clinics – but only what's left unused by the health centers.

That leaves clinic operators like Patrice Capan hurting. She's dedicated her career to providing reproductive health care to uninsured Denton patients. But since the budget changes were first implemented, she's had to slash services and shutter one of her two clinics, turning away hundreds of poor patients.

"This has been heartbreaking," Capan said. "It's just a constant hustle to see what I can offer – and then hope it works."

Many public health experts say clinics such as Capan's have a clear track record as providing more efficient and effective reproductive care.
(snip)
Texas isn't the only state that's struggled over how best to fund family-planning services. A 2000 study on family planning in California – published in the Journal of Adolescent Health – found that women with many health care options continued to go to specialized reproductive care clinics like Planned Parenthood, saying they found them more convenient, comfortable and confidential.

Capan said her 21-year-old clinic, Denton-based Family Health Care Inc., was effectively performing complete physical exams – until the state cut her funding. Now, she can't afford to run urine, iron and blood sugar testing. And she's had to put patients on waiting lists for certain types of birth control, because she doesn't have the money.

Money that has been taken from us taxpayers - who would rather not see the number of families living in poverty grow - has been left unused by the community health clinics. While we can depend on those legislators vying for the spotlight to protect to the death the right to bear arms, now on campus, we will be granted even more impoverished families to support.

This is the state legislature at its finest, as in using stimulus funds the governor berates to repair the mansion he lives in; A total of $22 million — half of that in federal stimulus money — has been allocated in a budget compromise to restore the fire-gutted Texas Governor's Mansion, legislative leaders said Thursday. Somehow I doubt that the plaque thanking donors for funds to restore the burned building will attribute its restoration to President Obama's beneficence and/or public spirit.

The attacks on family planning in Dallas has led to increased numbers of those suffering from AIDs. As a result of this result of ideology's triumph over good sense, local government has backed off the nonsense and allowed health care workers finally to distribute condoms. Sometimes the expenses they burden the public coffers with are stupid enough to push back wingers' extremism. This would be a good time for that to happen on a statewide basis.

Do we really need to push the numbers of children born into poverty upwards? No one can see this as a benefit to society. When ideology interferes with the perception of reality held by those in power, we get disaster.

Kids Faring Badly

More fun for the kids in Texas - yesterday it was homelessness, today it's fight clubs for the institutionalized. Not long ago it was physical and sexual abuse in Texas Youth Commission jails. It's about time some one in this state took a hard look at protections for our kids. Legislation before the legislature suddenly got pushed into passage yesterday, because of the bad publicity. Last month, staff cuts had been recommended for budget reasons, at the very reform school most implicated in abuse of residents.

Governor Perry's office had been contacted by more than one person concerned at abuse in state facilities, it turned from investigations into the TYC abuses. Since then, he has been instrumental in privatizing the care of kids.

It also can certainly be said about homelessness that the governor has given it a boost. Much homelessness is caused by growing unemployment, a cause the governor has publicly and proudly denounced in refusing federal support for unemployed workers.

Today the governor's office loudly declared its support of the legislation that was passed so suddenly after the news of 'fight clubs' broke. This should be an interesting gubernatorial campaign indeed.

Responding to reports of abusive treatment and neglect at Texas' large homes for the mentally disabled, the state Senate approved safeguards Monday designed to improve care and oversight.

Still to come are debates about whether Texas should move toward closing some of the 13 institutions, but the 30-0 vote to boost investigative powers and provide better staff training and background checks was the first major step toward improving conditions for the nearly 5,000 residents, many of whom are severely disabled.

"They need our protection," said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, who sponsored the Senate bill. "They need our oversight. And they need our compassion."

A 2008 federal report cited negligent and abusive care that violated residents' rights. It cited 53 deaths linked to preventable conditions at the institutions known as state schools.

The report also called hundreds of reports of abuse and injuries to patients "disturbingly high" and said more than half of state facilities are in danger of losing Medicaid funding because of care and safety problems.

In the discovery of the 'fight clubs' in Corpus Christi, kids found a proponent they had been missing. The press worked for them, reporting scandalous conditions that would have been given short shrift under normal conditions. Fortune usually wouldn't be so good; like economic crisis in the U.S., adults' bad behavior has become the force needed to get protection for kids.

"These people are charged with the care and custody of these clients, and they are exploiting (them)," he said.

Those involved will likely face charges of injury of a disabled person, Wilson said. The charge's severity can range up to a third-class felony, depending on the extent of a person's involvement, he said. The actual charges, however are left up to the Nueces County District Attorney, which is participating in the investigation along with the Texas Inspector General's Office, he said.
(snip)
"The fighting entails pushing, wrestling and some shoving," Wilson said. Police do not believe anyone was seriously injured, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.

"Four or five clients have been identified and at least five workers, possibly as many as 10," he said. "Some are more active in staging the fights, and some others passively stand around not doing anything."

Way to go, neanderthals. Having a bit of good old-fashioned abusive behavior on tape is a beginning for just the cure your kind need. The legislators got the shoving they needed to get some one watching over the kids. Lucky for the kids, the guards who got their kicks out of violence really helped out on this reform.

I'll turn over the recommendation for the "guardians'" treatment to you. Suggestions? and yes, that includes the governor who promoted this system.

Peripheral Damage

A report that is being posted throughout media outlets this morning concerns what happens to youths who are given sex education slanted toward abstinence. The incidence of use of protection is quite naturally higher among those who are given information about prevention.

There were no statistics in the study for actual pregnancies and contraction of disease. As I recently reported, in Dallas, rising AIDs occurrence is leading the City Council to reconsider its prevention of public health workers' distributing condoms.

The sadly recidivist trend in winger circles is damaging children affected in more than just their homes. When community attitudes force schools to shutter down education, in many fields, the future of this country is damaged as well.

The study is the latest to raise questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage. The findings also reignite the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual education just as lawmakers are about to reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for such programs.

Rosenbaum analyzed data collected by the federal government's National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which gathered detailed information from a representative sample of about 11,000 students in grades seven through 12 in 1995, 1996 and 2001.

Rosenbaum focused on about 3,400 students who had not had sex or taken a virginity pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge but were otherwise similar. She based that judgment on about 100 variables, including their attitudes and their parents' attitudes about sex and their perception of their friends' attitudes about sex and birth control.

By 2001, Rosenbaum found, 82 percent of those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises, and there was no significant difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had engaged in any type of sexual activity, including giving or receiving oral sex, vaginal intercourse, the age at which they first had sex, or their number of sexual partners.

There is a tragic difference between the parenting that informs children of facts and that that seeks to indoctrinate children in a particular religious pattern. The adolescent stage for all children includes resistance to whatever background they are familiar with. When they have been given rational patterns to follow, they will find their way to facts that will help them make decisions they will benefit from. When all they have been given is prejudice, of any sort, they start from so far behind that they may have any amount of trouble finding out what works for them.

Caring for children demands intelligence, and hopefully studies of the sort reported here will help guide parents away from the doctrinaire approach that damages their own family.

My direct experience with parents who put their religion above their children in importance do deep and lasting damage - particularly to 'family values'.

Let Them Eat Cake

Extending health care to the children of those who make too much for Medicaid, yet not enough to afford access to health care should not be a budget buster, yet that is exactly what is happening in California. The state's Healthy Families program, which provides that insurance to families on the cusp, is about to close enrollments just as people across the state are losing their jobs because of the downward spiralling economy. The directors of the program say that the move is necessary because it is operating at a deficit that simply cannot be overcome without the cut-off, according to this article in the Sacramento Bee.

As California sheds jobs at an alarming rate, increasing the ranks of the uninsured, the state-run Healthy Families program for children is preparing to close enrollment for the first time in its 10-year history.

New enrollment in the program, which provides medical, dental and vision care to more than 900,000 children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal but not enough to buy insurance, has averaged more than 27,000 a month during the past year.

That is an all-time high, and has already created a $17.2 million deficit in the program.

Lesley Cummings, executive director of the state's Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which administers Healthy Families, has told the board the only way to manage costs is to limit enrollment.

The issue is about to come up for a vote by the commission involved, but the new state Senate president pro tem, Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) has urged that vote be postponed so that the new US President and Congress can address the issue of health care in general, and children's health care in particular. In other words, he wants the state to wait until a new S-CHIPs bill can be passed and signed into law.

That certainly makes sense, because part of the problem is that the federal S-CHIPs program will soon run out as a result of the mean-spirited Bush veto of the plan passed by the 110th Congress, and the even meaner-spirited refusal of many of the current GOP members to over-ride that veto. Here's what's affected: the federal government provides $2 for every $1 spent by states in such programs.

Unfortunately, that is only part of the problem. California still has to come up with that $1 to qualify for the federal funds, and right now, the state is on the brink of economic disaster. The governor has declared (yet again) a financial emergency and wants the state legislature to come up with more budget cuts to finally face the fact that in the near future the state will be broke.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is finally willing to admit that maybe raising taxes might be necessary, but he has taken the chicken's way out on the issue. He has suggested a hike in the state's sales tax, which hits the poor and middle class disproportionately hard. Well, that is a start, but from the wrong financial starting line.

What the governator and the state legislature (all of them, including the star-struck Dems who like that lobbyist money) have to realize that it's time those who've benefited most from the last fifteen years and more paid their dues. It's time that those who have counted on that tired refrain that raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations will cause immediate flight from the state be faced down. If they won't pay their fair share, then let them leave.

And we can always point out that their decisions to fight such a tax hike will have the kind of repercussions they probably haven't considered. Those housekeepers and nannies and gardeners that work in their homes and for whom they haven't provided insurance have kids, and those kids will have the kind of illnesses that are communicable, and their employees will be bringing those germs to work with them and sharing them liberally.

Maybe when those economically advantaged people have to take their own families to the ER in their tax-advantaged SUVs they will get the message.

Morons.

What Is Up With Nebraska?

I have been watching a sequence of stories coming out of Nebraska with some confusion. It almost looks like that state has become a willing dumping-ground for teenagers whose parents are too exasperated to deal with them. Eighteen kids of various ages have been dropped off at hospitals in that state, including two from states other than Nebraska. An article in today's Los Angeles Times does give a bit more information.

A Michigan mother drove roughly 12 hours to Omaha so she could abandon her 13-year-old son at a hospital under the state's unique safe-haven law, Nebraska officials said Monday.

The boy from the Detroit area is the second teenager from outside Nebraska and the 18th child overall abandoned in the state since the law took effect in July. ...

Nebraska's safe-haven law is unlike similar laws in that it allows anyone, not just a parent, to drop off a child, of any age, at any state-licensed hospital without fear of prosecution for abandonment. The law doesn't absolve anyone of charges such as abuse or neglect.

The law is indeed unlike other states' laws, it is much more expansive. Most of these laws were designed to protect newborns when mothers simply cannot handle the responsibilities of motherhood. Nebraska's law, however, seems to be directed to all children who might be in danger of abuse or neglect. The parents of the eighteen kids dumped off apparently have found that to be a useful excuse:

In Nebraska, several of the parents or guardians who have left children cited behavioral problems. [Emphasis added]

So, if the child (from infancy to teenage years) misbehaves often enough and annoyingly enough, the parent can simply drop them off at the nearest hospital. I never had kids, so I suppose I'm not exactly an expert, but it just seems to me that a less drastic approach than throwing the kids away might be in order. Most cities and states have child and family agencies which provide counseling and teach parenting skills. For those parents truly overwhelmed, something short of child disposal ought to be available

I think maybe Nebraska ought to reconsider the breadth of that new law.