The core principle of the Republican Right is to get rid of the trial lawyers. One must ask why is this so important to Republicans. Are Republican’s immune from Medical Malpractice? Are Republican’s immune from car wrecks? Do sleepy truck drivers only run over Democrats?
Of course not. The reality is that the Republicans are the party of Big Business and the Democrats are the party of consumers. Class is the real issue in all politics but especially American politics. What is unusual I suppose about American politics is that the rhetoric used by the Republicans attracts so many naturally conservative poor people. They are somehow convinced that they are freer with corporate welfare than with social programs. They are somehow convinced, despite the overwhelming evidence, that health care would be cheaper and better if doctors didn’t have to be accountable to juries for their screw ups.
Medical malpractice cases are not about frivolous lawsuits. In no area of law are there fewer frivolous claims than in medical malpractice. In order for a trial lawyer like myself to sue a doctor, has to commit at least $100,000 of the lawyer’s own money. With the attitudes of juries about medical malpractice, no sane lawyer would ever sue a doctor unless the conduct complained of was outrageously bad and the result catastrophic. The words “frivolous lawsuit” and “medical malpractice” do not belong in the same sentence. Just do the math. We lawyers are supposed to be so calculating. Would we risk $100,000 on something laughable?
What does that have to do with 9/11? Well the Republican’s are the ones who also think that every problem in our world requires the intervention of the American military. I have two confessions for my readers. One, I grew up liberal Democrat at the time we were drafting American boys do die in Vietnam. I was one of those at risk of being drafted. I struggled with what to do about that, whether to become an illegal immigrant to Canada, go to jail or serve in a conflict I knew was morally reprehensible. The first step in that decision was to file for conscientious objector status which I did before I graduated from high school. I didn’t get drafted because my draft lottery number was 252.
My second confession is that I listen to NPR, usually On Point with Tom Ashbrook. http://www.onpointradio.org/ I listen to On Point and I contrast this shows in depth treatment of the issues of our time against the experiences of my life. I reached adulthood knowing that war was wrong. I reached adulthood also having read all of the books of James Michener, particularly Caravans, a book about Afghanistan. I reached 9/11 very concerned about the ongoing domestic war in Israel, a war that seemed as if it would never end.
On 9/16/2001 I sat in the pew of my church, contemplating what had happened, contrasted against who I was, how I became that person and what I knew about history. What I concluded as the pastor was concluding his remarks was that regardless of how “war like” the attacks of 9/11 had been, we could not fight a war to prevent it.
I got up and said: “You can’t start a war to catch a criminal.” What we got instead was a War on Terror. That war has worked about as successfully as our War on Drugs. That war makes about as much sense as the Depression Era American government declaring war on Indiana to find John Dillinger.
While I am morally opposed to modern war, I do understand war’s necessity. World War II was necessary despite all of the horrible atrocities committed by all sides in its prosecution. But to have a war, you have to have an opposing government or force against whom to direct a legitimate military campaign. We had that in World War II of course. We even had it in Korea and Vietnam. But who did we declare war against in Afghanistan? Osama Bin Laden?
One of the lessons we should have learned in Vietnam is that it is very hard to win a war against an opponent you can’t find. When that opponent is a criminal, not a government, it is virtually impossible. Criminals know how to hide. That is one of the things they do best. They are not the German army or a Japanese aircraft carrier. They commit the crime and then they disappear.
If you occupy the country you are invading, they either hide better or move across the border. Certainly, if you don’t catch them by surprise, you will never catch them. It is much easier for an individual to escape than it is for a whole army to pursue them. While there might be certain ways to use military forces covertly to catch such a criminal, an invading force of 100,000 men isn’t it.
You cannot avoid events like 9/11 by invading a country. 9/11 was not launched from Afghanistan. It was an operation where the training by its perpetrators was done in Florida. If the Taliban had not provided safe haven for Bin Laden, he would have hid somewhere else, like Florida or Hamburg. There are no preemptive military strikes against criminals. As helpless as we may feel, the only defense against criminals is detective work. And like the crime itself, detective work is best done with stealth, not invasions.
When the detectives are done with their work, then it is time for the lawyers to prove the case. It is what a nation of laws does. It is our laws and our lawyers that have made America different.
As we look towards the serious issues our government must decide, we must remember that our legal system is what preserves our special place in the world, not our corporate wealth. We American’s must choose to return to a government of laws for the people, by the people, not a government controlled by corporate greed and the preeminence of our Military Industrial complex.
Bush versus the Trial Lawyers
It is 9/11 today and a good time to reflect on the direction our country has taken this decade and the role trial lawyers can play in our safety and future. In his address on health care reform to the Joint Session of Congress on September 9, 2009, President Barack Obama gave a game changing speech about the overwhelming need for health care reform in the U.S. Yet two incidents from that speech standout in the media and public perception of what he said. Those two incidents were the “you lie” comment from Congressman Joe Who and the Republican enthusiasm for Barack’s discussion of medical malpractice reform. In coming blogs, we will address the high points of what he said about health care reform, but on 9/11, I think it is important to defend the role of American Civil Justice lawyers, in contrast to the havoc that the Republican’s have left us over the last decade.
The Republicans want to blame it all on the trial lawyers. We liberal Democrats want to blame the Republicans for destroying American legitimacy in the world in their endless pursuit of Corporations first and their politics of being tough on national security. Keith Olberman on his show Countdown before the President’s speech said the major issue in the domestic politics of the last 100 years was whether our government was on the side of the Corporations or the people. The competing interests are clear, but it is not just domestic politics which illustrate the danger of choosing Corporate interests over people. In our so called “War on Terror” we chose Corporate warfare (or was that Welfare) versus lawyers.
Two detours on my career otherwise devoted to brain injury advocacy over the last two decades arose out of the events of September 11, 2001. The first, I became an outspoken critic of our first War on Terror and the invasion of Afghanistan. The second, I became part of the first lawsuit filed against the Airlines for 9/11. Those two footnotes to my career do illustrate why we need a lot more Civil Justice and a lot less Corporate first government.
My first public statement about the War in Afghanistan was spoken before my church congregation the Sunday after 9/11. I stood up, without an invitation, and reminded my fellow parishioners of our church’s commitment to peace during a Vietnam, a commitment that had shaped my thinking as a teen, had a major influence on who I became as an adult. I told them that you do not start a war to catch a criminal. Punishing a criminal is a job for laws and lawyers, not armies of crusaders.
I wrote these words about Afghanistan on October 30, 2001:
What does this story have to do with Medical Malpractice reform and the Republican commitment to Corporate World? I will discuss further my actions as a lawyer in 2001 in my coming blogs, and the reader can decide whether the trial lawyers or the Republicans chart the course our country should follow. Know this though, our mess in Afghanistan is getting deeper and the liberal Democratic president of whom I am so proud is at a crossroads decision point to send another 30,000 troops their to pacify the country. If he listens to the politicians and generals and not the historians, our attempted occupation of the unoccupiable country, may be remembered in infamy as long as Genghis Kahn.
Next. You don’t start a war to catch a criminal. That is what the laws, lawyers and the Courts are for.
The Republicans want to blame it all on the trial lawyers. We liberal Democrats want to blame the Republicans for destroying American legitimacy in the world in their endless pursuit of Corporations first and their politics of being tough on national security. Keith Olberman on his show Countdown before the President’s speech said the major issue in the domestic politics of the last 100 years was whether our government was on the side of the Corporations or the people. The competing interests are clear, but it is not just domestic politics which illustrate the danger of choosing Corporate interests over people. In our so called “War on Terror” we chose Corporate warfare (or was that Welfare) versus lawyers.
Two detours on my career otherwise devoted to brain injury advocacy over the last two decades arose out of the events of September 11, 2001. The first, I became an outspoken critic of our first War on Terror and the invasion of Afghanistan. The second, I became part of the first lawsuit filed against the Airlines for 9/11. Those two footnotes to my career do illustrate why we need a lot more Civil Justice and a lot less Corporate first government.
My first public statement about the War in Afghanistan was spoken before my church congregation the Sunday after 9/11. I stood up, without an invitation, and reminded my fellow parishioners of our church’s commitment to peace during a Vietnam, a commitment that had shaped my thinking as a teen, had a major influence on who I became as an adult. I told them that you do not start a war to catch a criminal. Punishing a criminal is a job for laws and lawyers, not armies of crusaders.
I wrote these words about Afghanistan on October 30, 2001:
As the political consensus which propelled American into war starts to fade, the Republican’s and their talk show hosts, remind us of the promise of Bush and Rumsfeld that this would be a long war, that American’s will have to be patient.
I remember an amused arrogance when the Russians invaded Afghanistan circa 1979, somehow clearly remembering James Michener’s portrayal of the country. I am rereading Caravan’s (a James Michener novel copyright of 1963). It is quite prophetic. A passage worth reading with care:
“In Afghanistan, almost every building bears jagged testimony to some outrage. Scars still remained of Alexander the Great or Genghis Kahn or Tamerlane or Nadir Shah of Persia. Was there ever a a land so overrun by terror and devastation as Afghanistan.”
Then later, his character, the Afghanie engineer with the runaway American wife, tells the narrator, an American diplomat, this story of the ancient oasis where they are spending a night.
“Genghis Kahn destroyed Afghanistan. In one assault on the City he killed nearly a million people. That’s not a poetic figure. It’s fact. In Kandahar the slaughter was enormous. Some refugees fled to this caravanserai… this room. They were sure the Mongols wouldn’t find them here, but they did.
“First Genghis erected a pole right through the roof. Then the Mongols took their prisoners and tied their hands. Laid the first batch on he floor over there and lashed their feet to the pole. All around. That’s why the pillar is twelve feet across.
“They just kept on laying the prisoners down, one layer on top of the other until they reached the roof. They didn’t kill a single person that day, the Mongols, but they kept soldiers stationed with sticks to push back the tongues when they protruded. And while the pillar of people was still living – those that hadn’t been pressed to death – they called in masons to plaster over the whole affair. If you’d scrape away the plaster you’d find skulls. But the government takes a dim view of scraping. Its a kind of national monument. The Caravanserai of the Tongues.”
“I tell you these things only to explain the terrible burdens under which Afghanistan has labored. Our major cities have been destroyed so many times. Do you know what I expect … seriously. When a thousand men like me have rebuilt Kabul and made it as great as The City once was, either the Russians or the Americans will come with their airplanes and bomb it to rubble. “
I wonder, does George W. Bush believe that we American’s can win a war of patience against such a people? Perhaps we can declare victory when we have evened the score by killing 5,001 Afghanies. If not, Osama bin Laden’s goal of an Islamic uprising, deposing all western leaning Arab monarchies, will be built upon a foundation of silenced but never forgotten Afghanie tongue.
What does this story have to do with Medical Malpractice reform and the Republican commitment to Corporate World? I will discuss further my actions as a lawyer in 2001 in my coming blogs, and the reader can decide whether the trial lawyers or the Republicans chart the course our country should follow. Know this though, our mess in Afghanistan is getting deeper and the liberal Democratic president of whom I am so proud is at a crossroads decision point to send another 30,000 troops their to pacify the country. If he listens to the politicians and generals and not the historians, our attempted occupation of the unoccupiable country, may be remembered in infamy as long as Genghis Kahn.
Next. You don’t start a war to catch a criminal. That is what the laws, lawyers and the Courts are for.
White House putting off budget update
Healthcare reform, Wallstreet’s collapse and rebirth, unemployment and huge deficits. A hell of a time to finally get the kind of leader this country has needed for a decade. Money and American politics, money in American politics should be on center stage this summer. But it has been a big news cycle of deaths and so far from any upcoming election that only the wonks really seem to notice.
Here are the facts: our economy is in decline and unless we can find ways in which to generate greater economic activity at home, we are going to continue to fall further and further behind. 10% unemployment isn’t a surprise, unless you really believed what the politicians were saying (even Obama) when things looked the darkest. Wall Street can recover, but that doesn’t mean the American economy will recovery. Most of Wall Street’s numbers are based on trading, not production and what production these American companies are doing is overseas.
Regardless of how deep of a hole it seems to put us in we must have economic stimulus from the Federal Government. The complex issue is how we turn that stimulus not only into short term American jobs, but into making the American economy stronger, more competitive, greener. It seems such a logical thing to combine Obama’s idealism on these green issues with the economic needs of our country. But economic planning is complex and thwarted at every turn by special interests.
Time for true leadership in Washington and lets start by telling the truth.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://fishtail.tv
https://waiting.com
Date: 7/20/2009 10:08 AM
TOM RAUM,Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.
The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.
The release of the update — usually scheduled for mid-July — has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.
The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the “chances are high” of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.
“Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare,” Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. “There are some things that can’t be escaped.”
The administration earlier this year predicted that unemployment would peak at about 9 percent without a big stimulus package and 8 percent with one. Congress did pass a $787 billion two-year stimulus measure, yet unemployment soared to 9.5 percent in June and appears headed for double digits.
Obama’s current forecast anticipates 3.2 percent growth next year, then 4 percent or higher growth from 2011 to 2013. Private forecasts are less optimistic, especially for next year.
Any downward revision in growth or revenue projections would mean that budget deficits would be far higher than the administration is now suggesting.
Setting the stage for bleaker projections, Vice President Joe Biden recently conceded, “We misread how bad the economy was” in January. Obama modified that by suggesting the White House had “incomplete” information.
The new budget update comes as the public and members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious over Obama’s economic policies.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Obama’s handling of health-care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll also found support eroding on how Obama is dealing with other issues that are important to Americans right now — the economy, unemployment and the swelling budget deficit.
The Democratic-controlled Congress is reeling from last week’s testimony by the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, that the main health care proposals Congress is considering would not reduce costs — as Obama has insisted — but “significantly expand” the federal financial responsibility for health care.
That gave ammunition to Republican critics of the bill.
Citing the CBO testimony, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Monday accused Democrats of “burying this budget update until after Congress leaves town next month.” He called the budget-update postponment “an attempt to hide a record-breaking deficit as Democratic leaders break arms to rush through a government takeover of health care.”
Late last week, Obama vowed anew that “health insurance reform cannot add to our deficit over the next decade and I mean it.”
The nation’s debt — the total of accumulated annual budget deficits — now stands at $11.6 trillion. In the scheme of things, that’s more important than talking about the “deficit,” which only looks at a one-year slice of bookkeeping and totally ignores previous indebtedness that is still outstanding.
Even so, the administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year’s deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may actually top $2 trillion.
The administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year’s deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may top $2 trillion.
If a higher deficit and lower growth numbers are not part of the administration’s budget update, that will lead to charges that the White House is manipulating its figures to offer too rosy an outlook — the same criticism leveled at previous administrations.
The midsession review by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will likely reflect weaker numbers. But where is it?
White House officials say it is now expected in mid-August. They blame the delay on the fact that this is a transition year between presidencies and note that Obama didn’t release his full budget until early May — instead of the first week in February, when he put out just an outline.
Still, the update mainly involves plugging in changes in economic indicators, not revising program-by-program details. And indicators such as unemployment and gross domestic product changes have been public knowledge for some time.
Standard & Poor’s chief economist David Wyss said part of the problem with the administration’s earlier numbers is that “they were just stale,” essentially put together by budget number-crunchers at the end of last year, before the sharp drop in the economy.
Wyss, like many other economists, says he expects the recession to last at least until September or October. “We’re looking for basically a zero second half (of 2009). And then sluggish recovery,” he said.
Orszag, making the rounds of Sunday talk shows, insisted the economy at the end of last year, which the White House used for its optimistic budget forecasts, “was weaker at that time than anyone anticipated.” He cited a “sense of free fall” not fully recognized at the time.
“It’s going to take time to work our way out of it,” the White House budget director told “Fox News Sunday.”
Even as it prepares to put larger deficit and smaller growth figures into its official forecast, the administration is looking for signs of improvement.
“If we were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year, we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss,” said Lawrence Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Here are the facts: our economy is in decline and unless we can find ways in which to generate greater economic activity at home, we are going to continue to fall further and further behind. 10% unemployment isn’t a surprise, unless you really believed what the politicians were saying (even Obama) when things looked the darkest. Wall Street can recover, but that doesn’t mean the American economy will recovery. Most of Wall Street’s numbers are based on trading, not production and what production these American companies are doing is overseas.
Regardless of how deep of a hole it seems to put us in we must have economic stimulus from the Federal Government. The complex issue is how we turn that stimulus not only into short term American jobs, but into making the American economy stronger, more competitive, greener. It seems such a logical thing to combine Obama’s idealism on these green issues with the economic needs of our country. But economic planning is complex and thwarted at every turn by special interests.
Time for true leadership in Washington and lets start by telling the truth.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://fishtail.tv
https://waiting.com
Date: 7/20/2009 10:08 AM
TOM RAUM,Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.
The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.
The release of the update — usually scheduled for mid-July — has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.
The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the “chances are high” of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.
“Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare,” Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. “There are some things that can’t be escaped.”
The administration earlier this year predicted that unemployment would peak at about 9 percent without a big stimulus package and 8 percent with one. Congress did pass a $787 billion two-year stimulus measure, yet unemployment soared to 9.5 percent in June and appears headed for double digits.
Obama’s current forecast anticipates 3.2 percent growth next year, then 4 percent or higher growth from 2011 to 2013. Private forecasts are less optimistic, especially for next year.
Any downward revision in growth or revenue projections would mean that budget deficits would be far higher than the administration is now suggesting.
Setting the stage for bleaker projections, Vice President Joe Biden recently conceded, “We misread how bad the economy was” in January. Obama modified that by suggesting the White House had “incomplete” information.
The new budget update comes as the public and members of Congress are becoming increasingly anxious over Obama’s economic policies.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Obama’s handling of health-care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll also found support eroding on how Obama is dealing with other issues that are important to Americans right now — the economy, unemployment and the swelling budget deficit.
The Democratic-controlled Congress is reeling from last week’s testimony by the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, that the main health care proposals Congress is considering would not reduce costs — as Obama has insisted — but “significantly expand” the federal financial responsibility for health care.
That gave ammunition to Republican critics of the bill.
Citing the CBO testimony, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Monday accused Democrats of “burying this budget update until after Congress leaves town next month.” He called the budget-update postponment “an attempt to hide a record-breaking deficit as Democratic leaders break arms to rush through a government takeover of health care.”
Late last week, Obama vowed anew that “health insurance reform cannot add to our deficit over the next decade and I mean it.”
The nation’s debt — the total of accumulated annual budget deficits — now stands at $11.6 trillion. In the scheme of things, that’s more important than talking about the “deficit,” which only looks at a one-year slice of bookkeeping and totally ignores previous indebtedness that is still outstanding.
Even so, the administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year’s deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may actually top $2 trillion.
The administration has projected that the annual deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.84 trillion, four times the size of last year’s deficit of $455 billion. Private forecasters suggest that shortfall may top $2 trillion.
If a higher deficit and lower growth numbers are not part of the administration’s budget update, that will lead to charges that the White House is manipulating its figures to offer too rosy an outlook — the same criticism leveled at previous administrations.
The midsession review by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will likely reflect weaker numbers. But where is it?
White House officials say it is now expected in mid-August. They blame the delay on the fact that this is a transition year between presidencies and note that Obama didn’t release his full budget until early May — instead of the first week in February, when he put out just an outline.
Still, the update mainly involves plugging in changes in economic indicators, not revising program-by-program details. And indicators such as unemployment and gross domestic product changes have been public knowledge for some time.
Standard & Poor’s chief economist David Wyss said part of the problem with the administration’s earlier numbers is that “they were just stale,” essentially put together by budget number-crunchers at the end of last year, before the sharp drop in the economy.
Wyss, like many other economists, says he expects the recession to last at least until September or October. “We’re looking for basically a zero second half (of 2009). And then sluggish recovery,” he said.
Orszag, making the rounds of Sunday talk shows, insisted the economy at the end of last year, which the White House used for its optimistic budget forecasts, “was weaker at that time than anyone anticipated.” He cited a “sense of free fall” not fully recognized at the time.
“It’s going to take time to work our way out of it,” the White House budget director told “Fox News Sunday.”
Even as it prepares to put larger deficit and smaller growth figures into its official forecast, the administration is looking for signs of improvement.
“If we were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year, we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss,” said Lawrence Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Junior lifeguards mourn death of girl hit by boat
Brain injuries and boating? Yes, it is a serious risk factor. We have had cases of people being run over by boats, people with partial drowings, even people who have been injured by the torque of the wash from the back of a boat engine. Summer and boating comes with serious risk. Beyond the obvious of wearing a life jacket and avoiding alcohol when operating a boat, there are other things to watch for, including serious risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://codamage.com
Date: 7/15/2009 3:45 PM
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Lifeguards mourned and left flowers Wednesday at a makeshift memorial for an 11-year-old girl who was run down by a boat while training to be a lifeguard.
Allyssa Squirrell (Skwehr-EHL’) of Laguna Hills died in surgery Tuesday. An autopsy Wednesday concluded that she died of deep cuts to her back and her left leg, Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.
“In all probability, she was struck by the boat’s propeller,” Amormino said.
Junior lifeguards showed up at the city’s marine safety headquarters to remember Allysa. Mourners left flowers, a candle, a pot filled with sand and shells, a pink dolphin-shaped balloon and a message reading “God bless you sweet child,” Amormino said.
Noah Glass, 11, wore his training uniform of white T-shirt and red trunks. He came with his father to place flowers.
“She was really nice and funny. We always played games together,” he told KABC-TV.
Allyssa was with a group of 20 to 25 junior lifeguards who were training beyond the surfline at Huntington Beach when she was struck at about 3 p.m. Tuesday.
The youngsters were practicing speed drops, jumping off the end of a moving boat in pairs. Allyssa and another girl successfully jumped, Amormino said.
The 28-foot boat circled back to pick up the junior lifeguards when it struck Allyssa. The other girl was not hurt, Amormino said.
The boat’s pilot apparently didn’t see the girls because they had not yet swum back to the main group and the seas were choppy, Amormino said.
Allyssa was halfway through an eight-week lifeguard course. Training was suspended Wednesday and grief counselors were made available for the trainees, Amormino said. The program was to resume Thursday.
The boat was piloted by Lt. Greg Crow, a 32-year veteran of the Huntington Beach Marine Safety Division who held a public safety medal of valor, Amormino said.
There also were two instructors, one in the boat and one in the water.
Crow, 53, was traumatized by the accident and is on leave, Amormino said.
He voluntarily submitted to a toxicology test that found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in his body, Amormino said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://codamage.com
Date: 7/15/2009 3:45 PM
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Lifeguards mourned and left flowers Wednesday at a makeshift memorial for an 11-year-old girl who was run down by a boat while training to be a lifeguard.
Allyssa Squirrell (Skwehr-EHL’) of Laguna Hills died in surgery Tuesday. An autopsy Wednesday concluded that she died of deep cuts to her back and her left leg, Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.
“In all probability, she was struck by the boat’s propeller,” Amormino said.
Junior lifeguards showed up at the city’s marine safety headquarters to remember Allysa. Mourners left flowers, a candle, a pot filled with sand and shells, a pink dolphin-shaped balloon and a message reading “God bless you sweet child,” Amormino said.
Noah Glass, 11, wore his training uniform of white T-shirt and red trunks. He came with his father to place flowers.
“She was really nice and funny. We always played games together,” he told KABC-TV.
Allyssa was with a group of 20 to 25 junior lifeguards who were training beyond the surfline at Huntington Beach when she was struck at about 3 p.m. Tuesday.
The youngsters were practicing speed drops, jumping off the end of a moving boat in pairs. Allyssa and another girl successfully jumped, Amormino said.
The 28-foot boat circled back to pick up the junior lifeguards when it struck Allyssa. The other girl was not hurt, Amormino said.
The boat’s pilot apparently didn’t see the girls because they had not yet swum back to the main group and the seas were choppy, Amormino said.
Allyssa was halfway through an eight-week lifeguard course. Training was suspended Wednesday and grief counselors were made available for the trainees, Amormino said. The program was to resume Thursday.
The boat was piloted by Lt. Greg Crow, a 32-year veteran of the Huntington Beach Marine Safety Division who held a public safety medal of valor, Amormino said.
There also were two instructors, one in the boat and one in the water.
Crow, 53, was traumatized by the accident and is on leave, Amormino said.
He voluntarily submitted to a toxicology test that found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in his body, Amormino said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Internet-based therapy shows promise for insomnia
Sleep issues and fatigue are one of the most common of symptoms after a concussion. Virtually everyone I represent has problems with sleep. Could the internet do more than keep us company in the middle of the night, but also improve our sleep?
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
Date: 7/6/2009 4:00 PM
CARLA K. JOHNSON,AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — Sleepless people sometimes use the Internet to get through the night. Now a small study shows promising results for insomniacs with nine weeks of Internet-based therapy.
No human therapist is involved. The Internet software gives advice, even specific bedtimes, based on users’ sleep diaries. Patients learn better sleep habits — like avoiding daytime naps — through stories, quizzes and games.
“This is a very interactive, tailored, personalized program,” said study co-author Frances Thorndike of the University of Virginia Health System, who helped design the software, called Sleep Healthy Using the Internet, or SHUTi.
Such software could one day be a low-cost alternative for some patients, Thorndike said. And it could be the only non-drug option for people who live in areas without trained specialists, she said.
Prior research has shown face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy can have long-lasting results for insomniacs without the side effects of medication. The SHUTi program is based on that style of therapy, which helps patients change thinking patterns that contribute to poor sleep.
In the new study, released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers recruited 45 adults with moderate insomnia and randomly assigned 22 of them to try the Internet program.
The group who got the treatment woke up fewer times and spent fewer minutes awake during the night. The control group’s scores didn’t change. Even after six months, the Internet group’s scores remained improved.
The response was “fairly impressive and comparable to what you see with more intensive sorts of interventions,” said Jack Edinger, a sleep disorder specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who wasn’t involved in the study.
Participants were highly educated and had no sleep apnea or psychiatric problems. Testing the approach on a larger, more diverse group could determine which patients benefit most, Edinger said.
Shelby Harris, a sleep specialist at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center, said something valuable is lost in an Internet-based approach. A trained therapist can help patients stay motivated and identify anxieties keeping patients awake at night.
“There will certainly be people who prefer the face-to-face contact or do better with that type of therapy,” Thorndike said. “This will free up those limited resources for face-to-face therapy for the people who need it, benefit from it or would prefer it.”
The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
___
On the Net:
Archives of General Psychiatry: http://www.archgenpsychiatry.com
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
Date: 7/6/2009 4:00 PM
CARLA K. JOHNSON,AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — Sleepless people sometimes use the Internet to get through the night. Now a small study shows promising results for insomniacs with nine weeks of Internet-based therapy.
No human therapist is involved. The Internet software gives advice, even specific bedtimes, based on users’ sleep diaries. Patients learn better sleep habits — like avoiding daytime naps — through stories, quizzes and games.
“This is a very interactive, tailored, personalized program,” said study co-author Frances Thorndike of the University of Virginia Health System, who helped design the software, called Sleep Healthy Using the Internet, or SHUTi.
Such software could one day be a low-cost alternative for some patients, Thorndike said. And it could be the only non-drug option for people who live in areas without trained specialists, she said.
Prior research has shown face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy can have long-lasting results for insomniacs without the side effects of medication. The SHUTi program is based on that style of therapy, which helps patients change thinking patterns that contribute to poor sleep.
In the new study, released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers recruited 45 adults with moderate insomnia and randomly assigned 22 of them to try the Internet program.
The group who got the treatment woke up fewer times and spent fewer minutes awake during the night. The control group’s scores didn’t change. Even after six months, the Internet group’s scores remained improved.
The response was “fairly impressive and comparable to what you see with more intensive sorts of interventions,” said Jack Edinger, a sleep disorder specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who wasn’t involved in the study.
Participants were highly educated and had no sleep apnea or psychiatric problems. Testing the approach on a larger, more diverse group could determine which patients benefit most, Edinger said.
Shelby Harris, a sleep specialist at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center, said something valuable is lost in an Internet-based approach. A trained therapist can help patients stay motivated and identify anxieties keeping patients awake at night.
“There will certainly be people who prefer the face-to-face contact or do better with that type of therapy,” Thorndike said. “This will free up those limited resources for face-to-face therapy for the people who need it, benefit from it or would prefer it.”
The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
___
On the Net:
Archives of General Psychiatry: http://www.archgenpsychiatry.com
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
A look at health care plans in Congress
Will Barack Obama’s legacy be more lasting on health care than Hillary Clinton’s? The next few months will likely tell us. The big controversy is going to focus on whether there is a “public option.” The attackers of reform claim that if there is a public plan, then the private insurers will adversely affected. With an 80 plus percent growth in premiums and a 400% growth in profits during the Bush years, we can certainly hope they will be.
I don’t want to give up my health insurance coverage, but I sure wouldn’t want to be without any coverage, which is where an increasing number of American’s find themselves. Pressure must be put on all Democratic Senators to side with their constituents, not the insurance lobby in Washington to get what the people need, finally, this time.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
Date: 7/6/2009 3:31 AM
The Associated Press
A look at health care legislation taking shape in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate as President Barack Obama pushes to overhaul the system, cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans and reduce costs. Many of the details are still being negotiated and any final health care bill would have to meld proposals from the House and Senate.
___
HOUSE DEMOCRATS
WHO’S COVERED: Around 95 percent of Americans would be covered. Illegal immigrants would not receive coverage.
COST: Unknown.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid; $600 billion in unspecified new taxes, likely including new levies on upper-income Americans.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals required to have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers must provide insurance to their employees or pay a penalty of 8 percent of payroll. Certain small businesses are exempt.
SUBSIDIES: Individuals and families with annual income up to 400 percent of poverty level ($88,000 for a family of four) would get subsidies to help them buy coverage.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: A committee would recommend an “essential benefits package” that includes hospitalization, doctor visits, prescription drugs and other services. Out-of-pocket costs limited to $5,000 a year for individuals, $10,000 for families. Health insurance companies can offer several tiers of coverage, but all plans must include the core benefits. Insurers wouldn’t be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: Plan with payment rates initially modeled on Medicare to compete with private insurers.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Through a new National Health Insurance Exchange open to individuals and, initially, small employers; it would be expanded to large employers over time.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: The federal-state insurance program for the poor would be expanded to cover all individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,404). Currently Medicaid eligibility varies by state, but childless adults are ineligible no matter how poor, and in some states parents with incomes well under the poverty line still aren’t covered.
___
SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE
WHO’S COVERED: Aims to cover 97 percent of Americans.
COST: About $600 million over 10 years, but it’s only one piece of a larger Senate bill.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Another committee is responsible for the financing.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals required to have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers who don’t offer coverage will pay a penalty of $750 a year per full-time worker. Businesses with 25 or fewer workers are exempted.
SUBSIDIES: Up to 400 percent poverty level.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: Health plans must offer a package of essential benefits recommended by a new Medical Advisory Council. No denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: A robust new public plan to compete with private insurers. The plan would be run by the government, but would pay doctors and hospitals based on what private insurers now pay.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Individuals and small businesses can purchase insurance through state-based American Health Benefit Gateways.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Medicaid would be available to individuals with incomes up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
___
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
WHO’S COVERED: Around 97 percent of Americans. Illegal immigrants would not receive coverage.
COST: Around $1 trillion over 10 years.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Possible sources include cuts to Medicare and Medicaid; about $300 billion in revenue from taxing employer-provided health benefits above a certain level; and about $300 billion in revenue from a requirement for employers to pay into the Treasury for employees who get their insurance through public programs.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Expected to include a requirement for individuals to get coverage.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: In lieu of requiring employers to provide coverage, lawmakers are considering penalties based on how much the government ends up paying for workers’ coverage.
SUBSIDIES: No higher than 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four).
BENEFIT PACKAGE: The government doesn’t mandate benefits but sets four benefit categories — ranging from coverage of around 65 percent of medical costs to about 90 percent — and insurers would be required to offer coverage in at least two categories. No denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: Unlike the other proposals the Finance Committee’s will likely be bipartisan. With Republicans opposed to a government-run plan, the committee is looking at a compromise that would instead create nonprofit member-owned co-ops to compete with private insurers.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: State-based exchanges.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Everyone at 100 percent of poverty would be eligible. Between 100 and 133 percent, states or individuals have the choice between coverage under Medicaid or a 100 percent subsidy in the exchange. The expansion would be delayed until 2013, a late change to save money — the start date had been 2011.
___
HOUSE REPUBLICANS
WHO’S COVERED: The House GOP’s plan, in outline form for now, says it aims to make insurance affordable and accessible to all. There aren’t estimates about how many additional people would be covered.
COST: Unknown.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: No new taxes are proposed, but Republicans say they want to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: No mandates.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: No mandates; small business tax credits are offered. Employers are encouraged to move to “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” rules for offering health coverage.
SUBSIDIES: Tax credits are offered to “low- and modest-income” Americans. People who aren’t covered through their employers but buy their own insurance are allowed to take a tax deduction. Low-income retirees younger than 65 (the eligibility age for Medicare) would be offered assistance.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: Insurers would have to allow children to stay on their parents’ plan through age 25.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: No public plan.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: No new purchasing exchange or marketplace is proposed. Health savings accounts and flexible spending plans would be strengthened.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: People eligible for Medicaid would be allowed to use the value of their benefit to purchase a private p lan if they prefer.
___
OBAMA CAMPAIGN PROPOSAL
WHO’S COVERED: All children and many now-uninsured adults.
COST: Estimates as high as $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Obama proposed cuts within the health care system and raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 annually.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Unlike his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama did not propose an “individual mandate.” Instead he would have required all children to be insured, making it the parents’ responsibility.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Large employers would have been required to cover their employees or contribute to the costs of a new government-run plan.
SUBSIDIES: Obama proposed giving subsidies to low-income people but didn’t detail at what level.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: Insurers participating in a new health exchange would have had to offer packages at least as generous as a new public plan. All insurers would have been prohibited from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and would have had to cover children through age 25 on family plans.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: A new public plan would have offered comprehensive insurance similar to that available to federal employees.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Through a new National Health Insurance Exchange where individuals could buy the new public plan or qualified private plans.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Would have expanded Medicaid eligibility, but didn’t specify income levels.
___
Sources: Associated Press research, Kaiser Family Foundation, Lewin Group.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
I don’t want to give up my health insurance coverage, but I sure wouldn’t want to be without any coverage, which is where an increasing number of American’s find themselves. Pressure must be put on all Democratic Senators to side with their constituents, not the insurance lobby in Washington to get what the people need, finally, this time.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
Date: 7/6/2009 3:31 AM
The Associated Press
A look at health care legislation taking shape in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate as President Barack Obama pushes to overhaul the system, cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans and reduce costs. Many of the details are still being negotiated and any final health care bill would have to meld proposals from the House and Senate.
___
HOUSE DEMOCRATS
WHO’S COVERED: Around 95 percent of Americans would be covered. Illegal immigrants would not receive coverage.
COST: Unknown.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid; $600 billion in unspecified new taxes, likely including new levies on upper-income Americans.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals required to have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers must provide insurance to their employees or pay a penalty of 8 percent of payroll. Certain small businesses are exempt.
SUBSIDIES: Individuals and families with annual income up to 400 percent of poverty level ($88,000 for a family of four) would get subsidies to help them buy coverage.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: A committee would recommend an “essential benefits package” that includes hospitalization, doctor visits, prescription drugs and other services. Out-of-pocket costs limited to $5,000 a year for individuals, $10,000 for families. Health insurance companies can offer several tiers of coverage, but all plans must include the core benefits. Insurers wouldn’t be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: Plan with payment rates initially modeled on Medicare to compete with private insurers.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Through a new National Health Insurance Exchange open to individuals and, initially, small employers; it would be expanded to large employers over time.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: The federal-state insurance program for the poor would be expanded to cover all individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,404). Currently Medicaid eligibility varies by state, but childless adults are ineligible no matter how poor, and in some states parents with incomes well under the poverty line still aren’t covered.
___
SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE
WHO’S COVERED: Aims to cover 97 percent of Americans.
COST: About $600 million over 10 years, but it’s only one piece of a larger Senate bill.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Another committee is responsible for the financing.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Individuals required to have insurance, enforced through tax penalty with hardship waivers.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Employers who don’t offer coverage will pay a penalty of $750 a year per full-time worker. Businesses with 25 or fewer workers are exempted.
SUBSIDIES: Up to 400 percent poverty level.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: Health plans must offer a package of essential benefits recommended by a new Medical Advisory Council. No denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: A robust new public plan to compete with private insurers. The plan would be run by the government, but would pay doctors and hospitals based on what private insurers now pay.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Individuals and small businesses can purchase insurance through state-based American Health Benefit Gateways.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Medicaid would be available to individuals with incomes up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
___
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
WHO’S COVERED: Around 97 percent of Americans. Illegal immigrants would not receive coverage.
COST: Around $1 trillion over 10 years.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Possible sources include cuts to Medicare and Medicaid; about $300 billion in revenue from taxing employer-provided health benefits above a certain level; and about $300 billion in revenue from a requirement for employers to pay into the Treasury for employees who get their insurance through public programs.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Expected to include a requirement for individuals to get coverage.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: In lieu of requiring employers to provide coverage, lawmakers are considering penalties based on how much the government ends up paying for workers’ coverage.
SUBSIDIES: No higher than 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four).
BENEFIT PACKAGE: The government doesn’t mandate benefits but sets four benefit categories — ranging from coverage of around 65 percent of medical costs to about 90 percent — and insurers would be required to offer coverage in at least two categories. No denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: Unlike the other proposals the Finance Committee’s will likely be bipartisan. With Republicans opposed to a government-run plan, the committee is looking at a compromise that would instead create nonprofit member-owned co-ops to compete with private insurers.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: State-based exchanges.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Everyone at 100 percent of poverty would be eligible. Between 100 and 133 percent, states or individuals have the choice between coverage under Medicaid or a 100 percent subsidy in the exchange. The expansion would be delayed until 2013, a late change to save money — the start date had been 2011.
___
HOUSE REPUBLICANS
WHO’S COVERED: The House GOP’s plan, in outline form for now, says it aims to make insurance affordable and accessible to all. There aren’t estimates about how many additional people would be covered.
COST: Unknown.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: No new taxes are proposed, but Republicans say they want to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: No mandates.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: No mandates; small business tax credits are offered. Employers are encouraged to move to “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” rules for offering health coverage.
SUBSIDIES: Tax credits are offered to “low- and modest-income” Americans. People who aren’t covered through their employers but buy their own insurance are allowed to take a tax deduction. Low-income retirees younger than 65 (the eligibility age for Medicare) would be offered assistance.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: Insurers would have to allow children to stay on their parents’ plan through age 25.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: No public plan.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: No new purchasing exchange or marketplace is proposed. Health savings accounts and flexible spending plans would be strengthened.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: People eligible for Medicaid would be allowed to use the value of their benefit to purchase a private p lan if they prefer.
___
OBAMA CAMPAIGN PROPOSAL
WHO’S COVERED: All children and many now-uninsured adults.
COST: Estimates as high as $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
HOW’S IT PAID FOR: Obama proposed cuts within the health care system and raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 annually.
REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS: Unlike his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama did not propose an “individual mandate.” Instead he would have required all children to be insured, making it the parents’ responsibility.
REQUIREMENTS FOR EMPLOYERS: Large employers would have been required to cover their employees or contribute to the costs of a new government-run plan.
SUBSIDIES: Obama proposed giving subsidies to low-income people but didn’t detail at what level.
BENEFIT PACKAGE: Insurers participating in a new health exchange would have had to offer packages at least as generous as a new public plan. All insurers would have been prohibited from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and would have had to cover children through age 25 on family plans.
GOVERNMENT-RUN PLAN: A new public plan would have offered comprehensive insurance similar to that available to federal employees.
HOW YOU CHOOSE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE: Through a new National Health Insurance Exchange where individuals could buy the new public plan or qualified private plans.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Would have expanded Medicaid eligibility, but didn’t specify income levels.
___
Sources: Associated Press research, Kaiser Family Foundation, Lewin Group.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Move to child’s home major adjustment for senior
Date: 7/3/2009 8:14 AM
ADRIAN SAINZ,AP Real Estate Writer
From deciding where grandma will sleep to knowing her preferred bed time, turning a home into three-generation household takes plenty of planning and frank discussions that can be difficult.
Family psychologists, social workers and relocation specialists are seeing more seniors moving in with their grown children due to financial concerns. The recession has led to increasing job losses and shrinking savings accounts, forcing many seniors to change their retirement plans and consider moving in with their grown children temporarily, or permanently.
Multigenerational households made up 5.3 percent of all households last year, up from 4.8 percent in 2000, AARP reports.
In many cases, such a move is difficult and painful, in others it’s a relatively seamless transition. To make it as easy as possible, grown children and their parents, and often grandchildren as well, need to work out details of the transition.
“It’s an incredibly complicated situation,” says Marsha Frankel, a social worker with Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Boston.
Changes in a senior’s living arrangement — whether living independently or in an assisted living facility — can come suddenly, especially if eroded investments or job loss makes their current situation unaffordable. The unemployment rate for workers aged 55 and older hit 7 percent last month, almost double the rate a year ago, data released Thursday showed.
In fact, about one in 10 people aged 50 and older live either with their grandchildren or their parents, according an AARP survey of more than 1,000 respondents 18 and older released in March.
Sixteen percent of respondents 55 and over reported that moving with their family or a friend was necessary in the past six months. Among those 18 and over who say they are likely to make such a move, 34 percent cited a loss of income as a reason for the move, 19 percent cited a change in job status and 8 percent blamed home foreclosure.
When considering a move, seniors should honestly asses their relationship with their child and his or her spouse. A strained relationship could lead to conflict.
For many seniors, the last time they lived with their children was when they were teenagers whose lives needed direction and discipline, said Nancy Wesson, author of “Moving Your Aging Parents.” It’s the same for the adult child, who may have resented being told what to do all the time and rebelled against mom or dad as a teen.
“A lot of those dynamics are hiding in wait” and surface when the senior parent moves in, Wesson says.
But the relationship has now changed — both parties are adults and will need to adjust their approach to a more patient, communicative partnership.
If a senior decides to make the move, the first step is obvious but absolutely necessary: Have a family conference to discuss how everyone’s life is going to change. AARP suggests the household should also have regular conferences, perhaps once a week after dinner or on a weekend afternoon, to discuss the next week’s schedule.
Families can set up a three-month trial period and should have a backup plan in case the move just does not work.
“The key issue is everybody communicating and things being spelled out in advance,” Frankel says.
A key point of discussion is realizing how much care the senior requires in their daily lives, and how the younger family members are going to help.
It’s important for the senior to retain some control of their lives to keep from feeling isolated. A grown child should refrain from taking over every little aspect of the parent’s life and micromanaging their parents to the point of frustration.
“That’s offensive and they don’t appreciate it,” said Wesson, a senior relocation specialist. “It hurts their feelings. Involve them as much in the process as they are willing to handle.”
Preparing the home for the move is a big step. Homeowners should know if the house can accommodate someone who has trouble climbing stairs. Clutter should be removed from walking areas, and lighting can be improved to deal with any vision loss by the senior.
A grandchild who is being displaced from their usual bedroom should know ahead of time. Bed times might have to be adjusted. Times for having friends over should be established in advance.
The living space in the home should accommodate for Dad’s Favorite Chair, and everyone should have their own designated places, whether it’s to read or watch TV or do homework, AARP suggests.
Homeowners should review their insurance documents or make sure the senior is added to coverage in case there’s a household injury.
Also, the entire household should talk about finances. Seniors with a job, leftover savings or monthly Social Security checks can contribute some money for groceries, utilities or even the mortgage.
However, money doesn’t have to change hands. A more active senior could drive the grandkids to school, baby-sit twice a week or do the grocery shopping. Such routines provide consistency and help life go more smoothly.
But, as the senior gets older, he or she may not be able to drive any more and can’t help out in the household anymore. Adult children and their parents should look down the road and determine what the next step should be if the level of required care becomes too time-consuming.
“People often just think in the moment, that they’re in a financial crunch,” Frankel says. “What happens when mom has been putting her money into the household and suddenly needs more care? Those are the kinds of things that really get to be looked at and create all kinds of problems.”
These and other issues can be obstacles, but a situation in which a senior moves in with their children and grandchildren also can be a blessing: It can bring families closer together.
Multigenerational households should take advantage and try to eat meals together, look at family photos, and plan outings in which everyone participates. A grandmother’s or grandfather’s experience can be invaluable to a younger person who is willing to listen.
“It brings cross generational closeness that you can’t achieve when you are not living together,” said Elinor Ginzler, AARP’s housing expert.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
ADRIAN SAINZ,AP Real Estate Writer
From deciding where grandma will sleep to knowing her preferred bed time, turning a home into three-generation household takes plenty of planning and frank discussions that can be difficult.
Family psychologists, social workers and relocation specialists are seeing more seniors moving in with their grown children due to financial concerns. The recession has led to increasing job losses and shrinking savings accounts, forcing many seniors to change their retirement plans and consider moving in with their grown children temporarily, or permanently.
Multigenerational households made up 5.3 percent of all households last year, up from 4.8 percent in 2000, AARP reports.
In many cases, such a move is difficult and painful, in others it’s a relatively seamless transition. To make it as easy as possible, grown children and their parents, and often grandchildren as well, need to work out details of the transition.
“It’s an incredibly complicated situation,” says Marsha Frankel, a social worker with Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Boston.
Changes in a senior’s living arrangement — whether living independently or in an assisted living facility — can come suddenly, especially if eroded investments or job loss makes their current situation unaffordable. The unemployment rate for workers aged 55 and older hit 7 percent last month, almost double the rate a year ago, data released Thursday showed.
In fact, about one in 10 people aged 50 and older live either with their grandchildren or their parents, according an AARP survey of more than 1,000 respondents 18 and older released in March.
Sixteen percent of respondents 55 and over reported that moving with their family or a friend was necessary in the past six months. Among those 18 and over who say they are likely to make such a move, 34 percent cited a loss of income as a reason for the move, 19 percent cited a change in job status and 8 percent blamed home foreclosure.
When considering a move, seniors should honestly asses their relationship with their child and his or her spouse. A strained relationship could lead to conflict.
For many seniors, the last time they lived with their children was when they were teenagers whose lives needed direction and discipline, said Nancy Wesson, author of “Moving Your Aging Parents.” It’s the same for the adult child, who may have resented being told what to do all the time and rebelled against mom or dad as a teen.
“A lot of those dynamics are hiding in wait” and surface when the senior parent moves in, Wesson says.
But the relationship has now changed — both parties are adults and will need to adjust their approach to a more patient, communicative partnership.
If a senior decides to make the move, the first step is obvious but absolutely necessary: Have a family conference to discuss how everyone’s life is going to change. AARP suggests the household should also have regular conferences, perhaps once a week after dinner or on a weekend afternoon, to discuss the next week’s schedule.
Families can set up a three-month trial period and should have a backup plan in case the move just does not work.
“The key issue is everybody communicating and things being spelled out in advance,” Frankel says.
A key point of discussion is realizing how much care the senior requires in their daily lives, and how the younger family members are going to help.
It’s important for the senior to retain some control of their lives to keep from feeling isolated. A grown child should refrain from taking over every little aspect of the parent’s life and micromanaging their parents to the point of frustration.
“That’s offensive and they don’t appreciate it,” said Wesson, a senior relocation specialist. “It hurts their feelings. Involve them as much in the process as they are willing to handle.”
Preparing the home for the move is a big step. Homeowners should know if the house can accommodate someone who has trouble climbing stairs. Clutter should be removed from walking areas, and lighting can be improved to deal with any vision loss by the senior.
A grandchild who is being displaced from their usual bedroom should know ahead of time. Bed times might have to be adjusted. Times for having friends over should be established in advance.
The living space in the home should accommodate for Dad’s Favorite Chair, and everyone should have their own designated places, whether it’s to read or watch TV or do homework, AARP suggests.
Homeowners should review their insurance documents or make sure the senior is added to coverage in case there’s a household injury.
Also, the entire household should talk about finances. Seniors with a job, leftover savings or monthly Social Security checks can contribute some money for groceries, utilities or even the mortgage.
However, money doesn’t have to change hands. A more active senior could drive the grandkids to school, baby-sit twice a week or do the grocery shopping. Such routines provide consistency and help life go more smoothly.
But, as the senior gets older, he or she may not be able to drive any more and can’t help out in the household anymore. Adult children and their parents should look down the road and determine what the next step should be if the level of required care becomes too time-consuming.
“People often just think in the moment, that they’re in a financial crunch,” Frankel says. “What happens when mom has been putting her money into the household and suddenly needs more care? Those are the kinds of things that really get to be looked at and create all kinds of problems.”
These and other issues can be obstacles, but a situation in which a senior moves in with their children and grandchildren also can be a blessing: It can bring families closer together.
Multigenerational households should take advantage and try to eat meals together, look at family photos, and plan outings in which everyone participates. A grandmother’s or grandfather’s experience can be invaluable to a younger person who is willing to listen.
“It brings cross generational closeness that you can’t achieve when you are not living together,” said Elinor Ginzler, AARP’s housing expert.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Focal Dystonia? Ailing Guitarist Gets Second Chance with Left Hand
Date: 6/29/2009 1:32 PM
Ailing guitarist gets second chance with left hand
JEFF BAENEN,Associated Press Writer
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Guitarist Billy McLaughlin was at the top of his game a decade ago, a fingerstyle player noted for his technique of tapping on strings, when he began having problems controlling his right hand, missing notes with no clue why. Audiences thought he was drunk.
After a maddening couple of years in which his playing grew so bad he couldn’t perform his own songs, McLaughlin finally received a diagnosis: an incurable neuromuscular disease.
“When this first started happening, I thought I had done something wrong, I had committed some sort of musician’s sin or something,” McLaughlin said. “I didn’t sleep enough, maybe I was out too many nights after the concerts carousing around.”
McLaughlin has focal dystonia, a mysterious ailment that affects about 10,000 musicians around the world. For horn players, it can mean clenched jaws or immobile lips. For pianists, violinists or guitarists, the result can be frozen fingers that spell the end of a career. In McLaughlin’s case, the pinkie and ring finger on his left hand — the hand a right-handed guitarist uses to form chords or run scales on the fretboard — curled inward.
Instead of giving up, McLaughlin decided to relearn how to play the guitar left-handed — something another Twin Cities acoustic guitar virtuoso, Leo Kottke, likens to “trying to breathe through your feet. It’s exactly that hard.”
Now McLaughlin is back on the road and the subject of a recent documentary, “Changing Keys: Billy McLaughlin and the Mysteries of Dystonia.”
On a late spring day, McLaughlin — in jeans and boots — shows off his skills at his friend Jeff Arundel’s studio in downtown Minneapolis. His eyes closed and his shoulder-length blond hair waving, McLaughlin runs through his composition “Church Bells,” and the familiar Pachelbel’s Canon. His right hand runs across the fretboard while the index and middle fingers of his left hand hold, then release bass strings. The pinkie and ring finger of his left hand remain bent behind the neck of his guitar, which is emblazoned with “BILLY” on the head. The sound is smooth, calming, flawless.
Arundel, 51, a producer and fellow guitarist, knew McLaughlin in his heyday and watched his return.
“Imagine a guy learning to pitch with the other hand — the idea that a guy would get back to the major leagues doing that,” Arundel said.
McLaughlin, 47, grew up in Minneapolis and started playing guitar around 13 after “failing” on piano and trumpet. He studied guitar performance at the University of Southern California, switching to steel-string acoustic when his electric hollow-body Gretsch was stolen after graduation in 1984.
While performing with an ensemble, McLaughlin developed his signature percussive style, a hammering technique that demands strong fingers. He would step out on stage while the band took a break and wow the crowd with his tapping style. Eventually McLaughlin developed a solo act and became a big draw on college campuses, performing 200 days out of the year and logging 400,000 miles on his van.
After self-releasing seven CDs, McLaughlin signed a contract with Narada, an instrumental and world music label, in 1995. His first Narada release, “fingerdance,” reached No. 7 on Billboard’s New Age chart. It was around the time of his second Narada release, “Out of Hand,” in 1998 that McLaughlin’s finger problems began.
McLaughlin slipped on ice on the way to a photo shoot for the album and dislocated two fingers on his left hand. He underwent therapy and had gotten past the injury, but he said “something never felt quite right in that hand.” He ended his contract with Narada, completing his deal by releasing a best-of CD in 2000, and his marriage fell apart.
McLaughlin found his pinkie wouldn’t reach notes and that he had to refinger even easy pieces. He tried acupuncture, deep tissue massage and a chiropractor, spending “a small fortune trying to get this hand to work.”
Finally McLaughlin visited the performing arts clinic at the Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was told he had focal dystonia. He didn’t believe it and continued trying to practice through the problem until Mayo Clinic confirmed the diagnosis in 2001.
Focal dystonia is a localized movement disorder that’s part of a family of neurological disorders. In one form, it can cause a person’s eyelids to involuntarily close, effectively resulting in blindness. Writer’s cramp is another form. A generalized dystonia can contort a person’s entire body. The origins of dystonia — which affects about 300,000 people in North America — may be genetic. Treatments can involve anticonvulsants or surgery, but there’s no cure.
Normally muscles work together to raise or lower a joint, but in focal dystonia the muscles don’t act together and instead are in a “tug of war,” explained Dr. Mahlon DeLong, a neurology professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
After his diagnosis, McLaughlin called renowned concert pianist Leon Fleisher, whose own career was derailed by focal dystonia that affects the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand. Fleisher, 80, switched to a left-hand piano repertoire before undergoing Botox injections in 1995. The injections, combined with deep tissue massage, allowed him to resume playing two-handed (he recently released his first two-handed recording of concertos in more than 40 years).
Fleisher told him the skills McLaughlin enjoyed at his height were gone forever. But McLaughlin said he was relieved just to talk to someone who understood what he was going through.
For a musician, according to Fleisher, focal dystonia is “truly, profoundly tragic.”
“Your life is over, and it takes a special kind of courage to do what Billy has done,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Baltimore.
For McLaughlin, who didn’t want to give up music, the answer was to switch hands. He had his two guitars refitted and restrung for left hand and is about to receive his first custom-made left-handed guitar.
“What allowed me to do what I’m doing now is making a mental break from ‘What’s wrong with me?’ to ‘What do I have that still works?'” McLaughlin said. He took a left-handed guitar with him on vacation and for two weeks worked out his pieces note by note.
“The biggest hurdle initially was me allowing myself to sound like crap,” McLaughlin said. “I’m a beauty addict, and to not be able to create anything that sounded beautiful was difficult to get through.”
Ron Tracy of Hoffman Guitars in Minneapolis was the one who turned McLaughlin’s right-handed guitars into left-handed models.
“He basically had to start like a kid learning to crawl and walk, and did it,” Tracy said. “It’s really starting over. He had the noise in his head, but couldn’t make it come out his hands.”
When he was ready, McLaughlin debuted as a left-handed guitarist at a solo performance in Detroit in late 2005, an event captured by the “Changing Keys” documentary.
“We didn’t know what the story was going to be yet. We didn’t have an ending. It was a leap of faith,” said “Changing Keys” producer and director Suzanne Jurva. The documentary has been shown on Twin Cities public television and is looking for national distribution.
In April 2006, McLaughlin made what he calls his “comeback” performance, rounding up his old bandmates and playing a mix of old and new music with a string orchestra in suburban Maplewood for a self-released CD, “Into the Light.”
“That was me saying, ‘If I never play again, this is how I want to go out,'” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin tours Texas in July. He’s busy being a single dad to his 16- and 13-year-old sons and believes his best d ays of playing lie ahead. He lives with the possibility that his dystonia will migrate to his healthy hand.
“You know the vase hits the floor and in that moment that it shatters and that sound comes out you realize, ‘Oh, oh, that’s gone forever,'” McLaughlin said. “And in my case, there’s no new hand to put on. But I found another way around it. And that’s a lesson for every area of my life.”
___
On the Net:
Billy McLaughlin: http://www.billymacmusic.com
Dystonia Medical Research Foundation: http://www.dystonia-foundation.org
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Ailing guitarist gets second chance with left hand
JEFF BAENEN,Associated Press Writer
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Guitarist Billy McLaughlin was at the top of his game a decade ago, a fingerstyle player noted for his technique of tapping on strings, when he began having problems controlling his right hand, missing notes with no clue why. Audiences thought he was drunk.
After a maddening couple of years in which his playing grew so bad he couldn’t perform his own songs, McLaughlin finally received a diagnosis: an incurable neuromuscular disease.
“When this first started happening, I thought I had done something wrong, I had committed some sort of musician’s sin or something,” McLaughlin said. “I didn’t sleep enough, maybe I was out too many nights after the concerts carousing around.”
McLaughlin has focal dystonia, a mysterious ailment that affects about 10,000 musicians around the world. For horn players, it can mean clenched jaws or immobile lips. For pianists, violinists or guitarists, the result can be frozen fingers that spell the end of a career. In McLaughlin’s case, the pinkie and ring finger on his left hand — the hand a right-handed guitarist uses to form chords or run scales on the fretboard — curled inward.
Instead of giving up, McLaughlin decided to relearn how to play the guitar left-handed — something another Twin Cities acoustic guitar virtuoso, Leo Kottke, likens to “trying to breathe through your feet. It’s exactly that hard.”
Now McLaughlin is back on the road and the subject of a recent documentary, “Changing Keys: Billy McLaughlin and the Mysteries of Dystonia.”
On a late spring day, McLaughlin — in jeans and boots — shows off his skills at his friend Jeff Arundel’s studio in downtown Minneapolis. His eyes closed and his shoulder-length blond hair waving, McLaughlin runs through his composition “Church Bells,” and the familiar Pachelbel’s Canon. His right hand runs across the fretboard while the index and middle fingers of his left hand hold, then release bass strings. The pinkie and ring finger of his left hand remain bent behind the neck of his guitar, which is emblazoned with “BILLY” on the head. The sound is smooth, calming, flawless.
Arundel, 51, a producer and fellow guitarist, knew McLaughlin in his heyday and watched his return.
“Imagine a guy learning to pitch with the other hand — the idea that a guy would get back to the major leagues doing that,” Arundel said.
McLaughlin, 47, grew up in Minneapolis and started playing guitar around 13 after “failing” on piano and trumpet. He studied guitar performance at the University of Southern California, switching to steel-string acoustic when his electric hollow-body Gretsch was stolen after graduation in 1984.
While performing with an ensemble, McLaughlin developed his signature percussive style, a hammering technique that demands strong fingers. He would step out on stage while the band took a break and wow the crowd with his tapping style. Eventually McLaughlin developed a solo act and became a big draw on college campuses, performing 200 days out of the year and logging 400,000 miles on his van.
After self-releasing seven CDs, McLaughlin signed a contract with Narada, an instrumental and world music label, in 1995. His first Narada release, “fingerdance,” reached No. 7 on Billboard’s New Age chart. It was around the time of his second Narada release, “Out of Hand,” in 1998 that McLaughlin’s finger problems began.
McLaughlin slipped on ice on the way to a photo shoot for the album and dislocated two fingers on his left hand. He underwent therapy and had gotten past the injury, but he said “something never felt quite right in that hand.” He ended his contract with Narada, completing his deal by releasing a best-of CD in 2000, and his marriage fell apart.
McLaughlin found his pinkie wouldn’t reach notes and that he had to refinger even easy pieces. He tried acupuncture, deep tissue massage and a chiropractor, spending “a small fortune trying to get this hand to work.”
Finally McLaughlin visited the performing arts clinic at the Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was told he had focal dystonia. He didn’t believe it and continued trying to practice through the problem until Mayo Clinic confirmed the diagnosis in 2001.
Focal dystonia is a localized movement disorder that’s part of a family of neurological disorders. In one form, it can cause a person’s eyelids to involuntarily close, effectively resulting in blindness. Writer’s cramp is another form. A generalized dystonia can contort a person’s entire body. The origins of dystonia — which affects about 300,000 people in North America — may be genetic. Treatments can involve anticonvulsants or surgery, but there’s no cure.
Normally muscles work together to raise or lower a joint, but in focal dystonia the muscles don’t act together and instead are in a “tug of war,” explained Dr. Mahlon DeLong, a neurology professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
After his diagnosis, McLaughlin called renowned concert pianist Leon Fleisher, whose own career was derailed by focal dystonia that affects the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand. Fleisher, 80, switched to a left-hand piano repertoire before undergoing Botox injections in 1995. The injections, combined with deep tissue massage, allowed him to resume playing two-handed (he recently released his first two-handed recording of concertos in more than 40 years).
Fleisher told him the skills McLaughlin enjoyed at his height were gone forever. But McLaughlin said he was relieved just to talk to someone who understood what he was going through.
For a musician, according to Fleisher, focal dystonia is “truly, profoundly tragic.”
“Your life is over, and it takes a special kind of courage to do what Billy has done,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Baltimore.
For McLaughlin, who didn’t want to give up music, the answer was to switch hands. He had his two guitars refitted and restrung for left hand and is about to receive his first custom-made left-handed guitar.
“What allowed me to do what I’m doing now is making a mental break from ‘What’s wrong with me?’ to ‘What do I have that still works?'” McLaughlin said. He took a left-handed guitar with him on vacation and for two weeks worked out his pieces note by note.
“The biggest hurdle initially was me allowing myself to sound like crap,” McLaughlin said. “I’m a beauty addict, and to not be able to create anything that sounded beautiful was difficult to get through.”
Ron Tracy of Hoffman Guitars in Minneapolis was the one who turned McLaughlin’s right-handed guitars into left-handed models.
“He basically had to start like a kid learning to crawl and walk, and did it,” Tracy said. “It’s really starting over. He had the noise in his head, but couldn’t make it come out his hands.”
When he was ready, McLaughlin debuted as a left-handed guitarist at a solo performance in Detroit in late 2005, an event captured by the “Changing Keys” documentary.
“We didn’t know what the story was going to be yet. We didn’t have an ending. It was a leap of faith,” said “Changing Keys” producer and director Suzanne Jurva. The documentary has been shown on Twin Cities public television and is looking for national distribution.
In April 2006, McLaughlin made what he calls his “comeback” performance, rounding up his old bandmates and playing a mix of old and new music with a string orchestra in suburban Maplewood for a self-released CD, “Into the Light.”
“That was me saying, ‘If I never play again, this is how I want to go out,'” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin tours Texas in July. He’s busy being a single dad to his 16- and 13-year-old sons and believes his best d ays of playing lie ahead. He lives with the possibility that his dystonia will migrate to his healthy hand.
“You know the vase hits the floor and in that moment that it shatters and that sound comes out you realize, ‘Oh, oh, that’s gone forever,'” McLaughlin said. “And in my case, there’s no new hand to put on. But I found another way around it. And that’s a lesson for every area of my life.”
___
On the Net:
Billy McLaughlin: http://www.billymacmusic.com
Dystonia Medical Research Foundation: http://www.dystonia-foundation.org
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Fort Campbell training soldiers to prevent suicide
Date: 5/27/2009
KRISTIN M. HALL
Associated Press Writer
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Regular duties are suspended for three days at Fort Campbell, which leads the Army in suicides this year, so commanders can identify and help soldiers who are struggling with the stress of war and most at risk for killing themselves.
The post began a stand down on Wednesday so soldiers can focus on suicide prevention training in the wake of 11 confirmed suicides by Fort Campbell soldiers this year. More deaths are being investigated as possible suicides.
“This is not a place where Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne Division want to be,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend. “We don’t want to lead the Army in this statistic.”
From January to March, the installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee line averaged one suicide per week, Townsend said. After an Army-wide suicide prevention campaign in started in March, there were no suicides for six weeks, he said.
“But last week we had two. Two in a week,” Townsend said.
In a series of addresses this week, Townsend will speak to each of the approximately 25,000 soldiers assigned to the division. He told more than 4,000 soldiers Wednesday morning that the suicides must stop.
“Someone here has had thoughts or is having thoughts about hurting themselves,” Townsend said. “Or you know someone who is.”
Army leaders have been developing new guidance for commanders to help installations like Fort Campbell deal with rising suicide rates. Across the Army, suicides from January through March rose to a reported 56 — 22 confirmed and 34 still being investigated and pending confirmation.
The Army has said that soldier suicides reached the highest rate on record in 2008. Officials said the deaths in 2008 would amount to a rate of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers, which is higher than the civilian rate, when adjusted to reflect the Army’s younger and male-heavy demographics.
Frequent deployments by the division since 2001 have contributed to the stress suffered by soldiers at Fort Campbell, said Col. Ken Brown, the head of chaplains on the installation.
The three 101st Airborne combat brigades have gone through at least three tours in Iraq. The 3rd Brigade also served seven months in Afghanistan, early in the war, and the 4th Brigade has just returned from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan.
“We’ve been at war at this installation for seven years,” Brown said. “I think that has a cumulative effect across the force.”
Fort Campbell leaders have asked soldiers on the post to look out for each other and paired them up through a “battle buddy” system. Unit leaders are also reviewing and updating lists of soldiers who may be a risk for suicide and are reminding them they can seek help from resources such as a chaplain or a hospital.
But Army officials say many soldiers are afraid that seeking help for mental health issues will hurt their career or make them appear weak to their fellow soldiers. Townsend urged soldiers to speak up.
“You wouldn’t hesitate to seek medical attention for a physical wound or injury,” Townsend said. “Don’t hesitate to seek medical attention for a psychological injury.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
KRISTIN M. HALL
Associated Press Writer
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Regular duties are suspended for three days at Fort Campbell, which leads the Army in suicides this year, so commanders can identify and help soldiers who are struggling with the stress of war and most at risk for killing themselves.
The post began a stand down on Wednesday so soldiers can focus on suicide prevention training in the wake of 11 confirmed suicides by Fort Campbell soldiers this year. More deaths are being investigated as possible suicides.
“This is not a place where Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne Division want to be,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend. “We don’t want to lead the Army in this statistic.”
From January to March, the installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee line averaged one suicide per week, Townsend said. After an Army-wide suicide prevention campaign in started in March, there were no suicides for six weeks, he said.
“But last week we had two. Two in a week,” Townsend said.
In a series of addresses this week, Townsend will speak to each of the approximately 25,000 soldiers assigned to the division. He told more than 4,000 soldiers Wednesday morning that the suicides must stop.
“Someone here has had thoughts or is having thoughts about hurting themselves,” Townsend said. “Or you know someone who is.”
Army leaders have been developing new guidance for commanders to help installations like Fort Campbell deal with rising suicide rates. Across the Army, suicides from January through March rose to a reported 56 — 22 confirmed and 34 still being investigated and pending confirmation.
The Army has said that soldier suicides reached the highest rate on record in 2008. Officials said the deaths in 2008 would amount to a rate of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers, which is higher than the civilian rate, when adjusted to reflect the Army’s younger and male-heavy demographics.
Frequent deployments by the division since 2001 have contributed to the stress suffered by soldiers at Fort Campbell, said Col. Ken Brown, the head of chaplains on the installation.
The three 101st Airborne combat brigades have gone through at least three tours in Iraq. The 3rd Brigade also served seven months in Afghanistan, early in the war, and the 4th Brigade has just returned from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan.
“We’ve been at war at this installation for seven years,” Brown said. “I think that has a cumulative effect across the force.”
Fort Campbell leaders have asked soldiers on the post to look out for each other and paired them up through a “battle buddy” system. Unit leaders are also reviewing and updating lists of soldiers who may be a risk for suicide and are reminding them they can seek help from resources such as a chaplain or a hospital.
But Army officials say many soldiers are afraid that seeking help for mental health issues will hurt their career or make them appear weak to their fellow soldiers. Townsend urged soldiers to speak up.
“You wouldn’t hesitate to seek medical attention for a physical wound or injury,” Townsend said. “Don’t hesitate to seek medical attention for a psychological injury.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
AstraZeneca e-mails show debate on Seroquel risks
Date: 5/20/2009 4:01 PM
LINDA A. JOHNSON
AP Business Writer
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Marketing executives at British drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC for years blocked efforts by company scientists to raise concerns antipsychotic drug Seroquel caused weight gain and other problems, saying that would harm sales, plaintiff lawyers say.
They say their claim is backed by internal documents released Wednesday as part of ongoing lawsuits against the company brought by patients alleging they were harmed by the blockbuster drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Some of the internal e-mails and other documents, released late Tuesday to The Associated Press, show efforts to keep public information about Seroquel positive amid a spirited debate between the company’s scientists and its marketing executives.
Ed Blizzard, a Houston attorney whose firm is helping to represent about 6,000 Seroquel plaintiffs, said data showing Seroquel was “not very effective” and had serious side effects “was either spun or skewed or outright concealed.”
AstraZeneca spokesman Tony Jewell said that since the drug was approved in late 1997, the label or detailed package insert has stated that diabetes, high blood sugar and weight gain have been observed in patients in clinical studies.
He noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past several years has approved Seroquel as safe for new uses — bipolar mania, then bipolar depression and then an extended-release version.
Other internal e-mails and planning documents suggest the company pondered uses for which Seroquel was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including in dementia patients, though none of the documents indicate the company actually marketed the drug for those uses.
Doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs for unapproved uses, but drugmakers can’t promote them for those uses.
A strategic plan dated 2000 suggested a “key success factor” would be to “broaden Seroquel use on and off label,” specifically targeting educational programs “to share off label data.”
Jewell said in an e-mailed statement that the documents do not recommend “inappropriate promotion” of the drug and refer to intentions to seek approval for additional indications. The statement also points out physicians often prescribe atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel off-label.
Blizzard challenged that in a conference call. “The only way they can broaden its use off-label is by marketing it to physicians,” he said.
Seroquel was AstraZeneca’s No. 2 drug in sales last year, with revenue of $4.5 billion.
Blizzard said U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway in Orlando, Fla., who has been coordinating pretrial details of nearly 6,000 federal Seroquel lawsuits, recently ordered them returned to the federal courts where they were filed.
First, she is settling issues such as which of the many documents plaintiff lawyers obtained through pretrial discovery should be available for use in those trials and open to the public. AstraZeneca has claimed its documents are confidential but agreed to release hundreds in February and 400 more Wednesday.
In a chain of e-mails in one document, a scientistific safety committee in June 2000 recommended removing “limited” before the words “weight gain” in the list of Seroquel side effects, because many patients gained significant weight.
Marketing staff suggested trying other explanations, such as whether patients took other drugs that could be blamed. One marketing executive, Medical Affairs Manager Richard Owen, then wrote that such a change “is potentially damaging to Seroquel.”
The change in the drug’s label was finally made in 2002. That was after Barry Arnold, the vice president for clinical drug safety, complained repeatedly to the physician in charge of Seroquel drug safety about “Commercial (executives) having such an influence.”
Yet soon after the label change, AstraZeneca trademarked the term “weight-neutral” as a slogan for Seroquel, Blizzard noted. He said data showed about one-quarter of patients taking Seroquel increased their weight by more than 7 percent.
Later in 2002, Simon Hagger, global brand manager for Seroquel, e-mailed nearly 20 marketing staffers to say “we are under clear instruction from the highest level within AstraZeneca at this time not to discuss details surrounding trial 41,” outside the company. That patient study, concluded that year, found elevated levels of blood sugar.
AstraZeneca has been trying to get Seroquel approved in the U.S. for treating patients with depression and anxiety disorder, a group that includes more than 20 million people.
In April, a panel of FDA scientific advisers said Seroquel’s side effects, including weight gain, high blood sugar and potential heart problems, were too troubling to make it a first choice against depression or anxiety. On a split vote, the panel said Seroquel could be used as an added therapy for patients taking other medicines but not getting relief from depression. The FDA has yet to issue a final ruling.
“Going back almost 20 years, AstraZeneca has conducted 118 studies on the safety and efficacy of Seroquel,” company spokesman Jewell said.
AstraZeneca faces roughly 15,000 lawsuits over Seroquel, about 60 percent of them in state courts.
AstraZeneca’s U.S.-traded shares rose 75 cents to $41.05 Wednesday morning.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
LINDA A. JOHNSON
AP Business Writer
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Marketing executives at British drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC for years blocked efforts by company scientists to raise concerns antipsychotic drug Seroquel caused weight gain and other problems, saying that would harm sales, plaintiff lawyers say.
They say their claim is backed by internal documents released Wednesday as part of ongoing lawsuits against the company brought by patients alleging they were harmed by the blockbuster drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Some of the internal e-mails and other documents, released late Tuesday to The Associated Press, show efforts to keep public information about Seroquel positive amid a spirited debate between the company’s scientists and its marketing executives.
Ed Blizzard, a Houston attorney whose firm is helping to represent about 6,000 Seroquel plaintiffs, said data showing Seroquel was “not very effective” and had serious side effects “was either spun or skewed or outright concealed.”
AstraZeneca spokesman Tony Jewell said that since the drug was approved in late 1997, the label or detailed package insert has stated that diabetes, high blood sugar and weight gain have been observed in patients in clinical studies.
He noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past several years has approved Seroquel as safe for new uses — bipolar mania, then bipolar depression and then an extended-release version.
Other internal e-mails and planning documents suggest the company pondered uses for which Seroquel was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including in dementia patients, though none of the documents indicate the company actually marketed the drug for those uses.
Doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs for unapproved uses, but drugmakers can’t promote them for those uses.
A strategic plan dated 2000 suggested a “key success factor” would be to “broaden Seroquel use on and off label,” specifically targeting educational programs “to share off label data.”
Jewell said in an e-mailed statement that the documents do not recommend “inappropriate promotion” of the drug and refer to intentions to seek approval for additional indications. The statement also points out physicians often prescribe atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel off-label.
Blizzard challenged that in a conference call. “The only way they can broaden its use off-label is by marketing it to physicians,” he said.
Seroquel was AstraZeneca’s No. 2 drug in sales last year, with revenue of $4.5 billion.
Blizzard said U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway in Orlando, Fla., who has been coordinating pretrial details of nearly 6,000 federal Seroquel lawsuits, recently ordered them returned to the federal courts where they were filed.
First, she is settling issues such as which of the many documents plaintiff lawyers obtained through pretrial discovery should be available for use in those trials and open to the public. AstraZeneca has claimed its documents are confidential but agreed to release hundreds in February and 400 more Wednesday.
In a chain of e-mails in one document, a scientistific safety committee in June 2000 recommended removing “limited” before the words “weight gain” in the list of Seroquel side effects, because many patients gained significant weight.
Marketing staff suggested trying other explanations, such as whether patients took other drugs that could be blamed. One marketing executive, Medical Affairs Manager Richard Owen, then wrote that such a change “is potentially damaging to Seroquel.”
The change in the drug’s label was finally made in 2002. That was after Barry Arnold, the vice president for clinical drug safety, complained repeatedly to the physician in charge of Seroquel drug safety about “Commercial (executives) having such an influence.”
Yet soon after the label change, AstraZeneca trademarked the term “weight-neutral” as a slogan for Seroquel, Blizzard noted. He said data showed about one-quarter of patients taking Seroquel increased their weight by more than 7 percent.
Later in 2002, Simon Hagger, global brand manager for Seroquel, e-mailed nearly 20 marketing staffers to say “we are under clear instruction from the highest level within AstraZeneca at this time not to discuss details surrounding trial 41,” outside the company. That patient study, concluded that year, found elevated levels of blood sugar.
AstraZeneca has been trying to get Seroquel approved in the U.S. for treating patients with depression and anxiety disorder, a group that includes more than 20 million people.
In April, a panel of FDA scientific advisers said Seroquel’s side effects, including weight gain, high blood sugar and potential heart problems, were too troubling to make it a first choice against depression or anxiety. On a split vote, the panel said Seroquel could be used as an added therapy for patients taking other medicines but not getting relief from depression. The FDA has yet to issue a final ruling.
“Going back almost 20 years, AstraZeneca has conducted 118 studies on the safety and efficacy of Seroquel,” company spokesman Jewell said.
AstraZeneca faces roughly 15,000 lawsuits over Seroquel, about 60 percent of them in state courts.
AstraZeneca’s U.S.-traded shares rose 75 cents to $41.05 Wednesday morning.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.