From the Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot:

Michigan’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has accused a local school district of breaking the law by preventing a 5-year-old with cerebral palsy from bringing her service dog to school.

Ehlena Fry’s parents argue that her medically prescribed, certified service dog, Wonder, must accompany her to school in order to help her to become an independent member of the community. Ehlena’s IEP team in the Napoleon Community Schools concluded that the girl’s needs are being met by her full-time classroom aide.

“To force a 5-year-old girl with cerebral palsy to choose between her independence and her education is not only illegal, it is heartless,” said Michael J. Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan legal director.

Community members helped the Frys raise more than $13,000 last year to get the dog from 4 Paws for Ability.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, ABC News, Reuters:

Sequenom, a diagnostics testing and genetic analysis company, has announced it will pay $14 million and an undisclosed amount in stock to settle an investor class-action lawsuit over mishandling of data in the development of a potentially lucrative prenatal test for Down syndrome. The company did not admit wrongdoing.

The lawsuit came after the company’s stock lost more than three-quarters of its value last April. The company said then that its projections of the reliability of its prenatal test were not reliable, and said unnamed employees had not handled test data properly. Five top officers were fired and another resigned.

Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, and federal prosecutors are still pending.

BNET columnist Jim Edwards said changes in corporate governance announced as part of the settlement suggest that lawsuits against the company “seem to have introduced adult supervision at a company in dire need of it.”

Sequenom officials had estimated that the worldwide market for a prenatal test for Down syndrome is worth between $3 billion and $5 billion.

Earlier posts here.

By Joe Shapiro, National Public Radio:

Judi Chamberlin, an outspoken advocate for the rights and dignity of people with mental illness, died of lung disease over the weekend at her home in Arlington, Mass. She was 65.

Shapiro calls her “a civil rights hero from a civil rights movement you may never have heard of.”

Chamberlin’s road to advocacy began when she was hospitalized against her will for depression in 1966, and was shocked by the way she was treated. She wrote a book, On Our Own, that became a manifesto for patients and influenced the mental health establishment.

She called her movement “Mad Pride,” and argued that people with mental illness need to have a say in their own treatment. An excerpt:

Chamberlin told people with mental illness that they were, like everyone else, people with quirks and differences, but with strengths and abilities, too. She wanted people to reclaim the description “mad” as something that was OK.

“She changed it from a word that was a pejorative word,” says [Robert] Whitaker [author of Mad in America, a history of the treatment of people with mental illness in the United States]. “That was saying to the world at large: We are worthy individuals, and our minds our worthy, and they’re to be respected.”

See also:

– Facing death, a plea for the dignity of psychiatric patients — Boston Globe

– Bibliography from the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy

The editorial board at the [Portland] Oregonian says schools should allow properly trained service animals to accompany kids with disabilities in the classroom. An excerpt:

Yes, school districts need strict policies in place so that families can’t abuse the system and classrooms don’t become menageries. But when a highly trained dog can help an autistic boy learn more and disrupt other students less, you’d think school officials would grab the dog biscuits rather than call the lawyers.

The editorial follows a report about an Oregon school district’s refusal to allow a 9-year-old boy with autism to bring his service dog to school. Scooter Givens’ family argues that the dog improves his access to education by calming him down.

Created for use in mining, compound now sold as dietary supplement

Parents desperate to treat autism in their children are turning to an industrial chemical that has not been proven safe or effective for use in humans, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Called OSR#1, the substance is being marketed as a dietary supplement by Boyd Haley, a retired professor who was once chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. Haley said the chemical, which is used to pull heavy metals from polluted soil, is a “food” that is “totally without toxicity.”

Sources at the Food and Drug Administration told the Tribune that Haley had not submitted sufficient information for the substance to be evaluated for safety. Experts expressed concern that children were consuming a chemical that had not been formally evaluated for safety.

The report on OSR#1 is the latest in a series of Tribune articles documenting unproven and potentially harmful “therapies” that are being given to children with autism. Earlier post here.

Writing in USA Today, Ben Mattlin says people with disabilities owe a profound debt of gratitude to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for his work in the civil rights movement.

Like African Americans, Mattlin says, people with disabilities share a history of being been held back by discrimination and low expectations. An excerpt:

Make no mistake: There is a legacy of shame. Just as blacks were shunted to the margins of society not so long ago, we disabled were housed in attics, basements and institutions.

What’s more, both blacks and the disabled were once considered genetically inferior. There were laws curtailing our reproductive freedom. Even today, unemployment rates for people with disabilities rival those of African Americans.

The historical and current similarities are stirring. Which is why Martin Luther King Day on Monday should have special meaning for people with disabilities. Besides showing us how to organize and agitate for equal rights, King gave voice to the simple yet revolutionary notion that we’re good enough – valuable, even – as we are. And as such we deserve better.

San Diego Chargers owner will retrofit thousands of rental properties

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, AP/ABC, Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

In what is being called the largest disabled-access settlement in the housing industry, [San Diego] Chargers owner Alex Spanos’ development company will spend more than $12 million to retrofit thousands of apartment units found to be out of compliance with fair housing laws governing accessibility.

The settlement covers 15,500 units in 123 apartment properties in 11 states, and stems from a lawsuit filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance against the A.G. Spanos Cos., which is run by Spanos’ sons Michael and Dean Spanos.

In announcing the settlement, the National Fair Housing Alliance praised the developer for crafting a settlement that went beyond the letter of the law.

“It’s unusual for me to praise defendants in a case,” said Shanna Smith, president of the alliance … “This is a landmark, unique, comprehensive settlement.”