Time magazine asks — ‘Her diabetes: Will it be a handicap?’

An excerpt:

The nominee’s chronic condition is worth noting, since it puts her at increased risk of several serious medical conditions, including heart disease, kidney problems, blindness and nerve damage – and an increased risk of early death. Studies show that adults with diabetes are two to four times more likely than non-diabetics to die of heart disease. But when treated correctly, say doctors, Type 1 diabetes patients are able to lead relatively healthy lives. The latest data suggest that patients can successfully manage the disease for four or five decades with no serious health complications.

Diabetes and the Supreme Court Nominee — Associated Press

An excerpt:

As part of its vetting process, White House officials talked with Sotomayor about her diabetes and consulted her doctors and others before concluding she’s in good health and can serve for many years.

Praise for Sotomayor from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law (press release): Sotomayor nomination is good news, say advocates for people with mental disabilities

An excerpt:

“Her opinions demonstrate that Judge Sotomayor understands the language and the purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability rights laws,” said Robert Bernstein, the Center’s executive director.

“Her empathy is evident, as is her understanding that judges’ decisions interpreting these federal laws have real-life consequences for people with disabilities and their opportunity to participate in American life,” Bernstein added.

The Bazelon Center offers a review and analysis of selected district court and Second Circuit decisions by Judge Sotomayor here.

See also:

• Sotomayor’s Type 1 diabetes a ‘non-issue,’ say docs — Wall Street Journal health blog
• Diabetes groups hail Obama court pick — Agence France-Presse

Earlier posts start here.

When President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee today, he said he had sought a candidate who would bring, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, not just logic but experience …

“… experience being tested by obstacles and barriers, by hardship and misfortune; experience insisting, persisting, and ultimately overcoming those barriers. It is experience that can give a person a common touch and a sense of compassion, an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.”

Early press reporting on the nomination has interpreted Obama’s comments as referring to Sotomayor’s status as a woman and a Latina, the daughter of Puerto Rican immigants who grew up in a housing project in the Bronx.

But Sotomayor’s life journey also includes at least one other noteworthy aspect. She is a person with a disability: Type One diabetes, diagnosed when she was eight years old. People with diabetes are generally covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Sotomayor’s diabetes prompted renewed discussion among internet commentators about whether her health status should be considered when assessing her suitability for the high court post. See:

• A matter of health for SCOTUS nominee — April Fulton, NPR’s health blog
  
• Stop worrying about Sonia Sotomayor’s diabetes — Kate Daily on Newsweek’s ‘The Human Condition’ blog

In an interview with the New York Daily News in 1998, Sotomayor said her disability shaped her career choice. People with diabetes weren’t allowed to become detectives like her hero Nancy Drew, she said she was told, so she decided to become a lawyer instead.

See also:

American Diabetes Association applauds Sotomayor’s nomination — press release. The nomination …

… “affirms that people with diabetes should not be discriminated against and each person with diabetes should be judged based on his or her merits, not on stereotypes or misinformation about diabetes.

… As this process moves forward, the diabetes community expects that Judge Sotomayor’s nomination will be evaluated based on her qualifications and years of experience – and not her diabetes. To evaluate her in any other way would be a disservice to the United States.”

Earlier posts here and here.

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Charlotte Moore interviews Anne Crosby, author of “Matthew,” a memoir about her son with Down syndrome. Crosby sent Matthew to an institution in the 1960′s under the advice of an eminent psychologist who urged her to protect her daughter, the “important” child, from her son, the “throwaway” child.

Moore says Crosby, now 79, has written a memoir “which describes with exceptional clarity and honesty the warring emotions unleashed by her son’s short life.” The book portrays Matthew, who died at 25 of a heart condition, as “funny, original, gentle, kind and with a power of empathy so acute that he was tormented by concern for the feelings of people, animals and even objects.”

Among the challenges Crosby faced at the time:

• Her husband, Theo, remained “implacable and unrelenting in his wish to send him away;”
• Theo’s mother believed Matthew was a punishment from God;
• Friends abandoned her because they thought Matthew was “harmful to their children’s psyches;” and
• Anne’s mother revealed that she had given up a child with Down syndrome herself and “smilingly recommended that Theo and I set about making similar arrangements for [Matthew].”

Charlotte Moore, who has two sons with autism, is the author of “George and Sam: Two boys, one family and autism.”

Earlier posts here and here.

(Family photo from The Guardian)

Boston Globe columnist Beverly Beckham writes about a small jewelry business run by a nonprofit residential community in Massachusetts that employs artisans with disabilities to create disability awareness jewelry.

Cheryl Bleakney, an employee of  New England Village, came up with the plan to design “True Meaning Jewelry.” The organization donates a percentage of its sales to the causes the jewelry represents. The rest of its revenues are used to pay workers with disabilities, boosting their personal pride and independence.

“Last year at this time, we were making jewelry for another company,” said Bleakney …  “And I thought, ‘Why can’t we make our own jewelry and do it for awareness? Who better to do this than these men and women? Why can’t we start our own little business?’”

The jewelry business has about 10 employees; Bleakney would like to expand to 20.

(New England Village photo)

Henry’s Turkey Service once was praised, is now condemned

From the Des Moines Register:

Four decades ago, Henry’s Turkey Service of Goldthwaite, Texas, was hailed as a national leader because it hired people with intellectual disabilities. But society’s attitudes and practices toward hiring people with disabilities have changed since then, even as the company’s policies remained constant.

The company has been reviled by politicians and disability advocates for paying disabled workers the equivalent of less than 50 cents an hour, in a situation that some have called comparable to slavery. Henry’s Turkey Service ran the bunkhouse in Atalissa, Iowa, that was shut down earlier this year amid complaints about substandard living conditions and neglect.

Earlier posts here.

Writing in the New York Times, Karl Taro Greenfeld says adults with autism aren’t getting adequate support and care, nor are researchers trying to find out how best to help them.

Even though autism is now among “the most financially successful and mediagenic diseases ever,” Greenfeld says, it has been portrayed as a childhood disease  — which means that no help has been forthcoming for adults like Greenfeld’s 42-year-old brother, Noah.

This has to change, Greenfeld says, before society is flooded with hundreds of thousands of adults in desperate need of lifetime support.

See also: Two brothers, battling autism — Washington Post

Earlier posts here.

From the Asbury Park [NJ] Press, WXIA-TV, Atlanta, with video, WJXX-TV, Jacksonville, FL:

A judge has ruled that a non-verbal 11-year-old boy with autism was physically and verbally abused in his Atlanta area public school classroom. Stefan Ferrari’s mother sewed a hidden electronic microphone into the boy’s shirt after he came home with bruises from knee to hip.

The microphone picked up the sound of a voice threatening the boy with a “be-quiet hit,” followed by thumping noises and wailing. Also included in the audio recording were adults talking about the size of a boyfriend’s penis, conversation about drinking “dirty martinis,” and jokes about Stefan eating pizza taken out of a trashcan. A voice was heard saying, “Sit down, stupid.” (more…)