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)

From the San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle Scavenger blog, NBC2 News, San Francisco:

Mental health advocates are protesting against the recently opened Psycho Donuts store in Campbell, California, saying it encourages stigma against people with mental illness.

The shop carries products with names like “Cereal Killer” and “Head Trauma” (above), served by people wearing white coats and stethoscopes. Owners say critics need to lighten up.

“There’s a fine line, I think, between having a sense of humor and not, and we’re really just looking at doing something that’s light-hearted and fun,” co-owner Jordan Zweigoron said. “It’s a misunderstanding.”

(Photo from San Francisco Chronicle blog)

App encourages gamers to simulate shaken baby syndrome

From the CNET News, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC:

Responding to complaints from child welfare groups, Apple pulled an application from its online store Wednesday that allowed gamers to simulate shaking a baby to death.

The 99-cent “Baby Shaker” iPhone app, unveiled Monday, presents the image and sound of a crying baby. With vigorous shaking by a user, red x-marks  cover the infant’s eyes to mark its death and the crying stops. The program reportedly is still available through its developer, Sikalosoft.

Shaken baby syndrome, a type of inflicted brain trauma that occurs when a baby is violently shaken, causes neurological damage and intellectual disability or death.

“See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!” reads the sales pitch for Baby Shaker.

… “Not only are they making fun of Shaken Baby Syndrome but they are actually encouraging it. This is absolutely terrible,” said Marilyn Barr, founder of the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and a board member of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation.

From the New York Times:

Advertisers are increasingly making an effort to reach out to people with disabilities, even as the economic downturn is cutting into revenues. The idea: To connect with customers in a way that is seen as more altruistic and less mercenary.

Among recently announced charitable partnerships:

• Advertising agency BBDO Worldwide is working to support a Special Olympics campaign to end the derogatory use of forms of the word “retard.” The campaign, called “Spread the Word to End the Word,” kicks off today. Posters for the campaign link the word to familiar slurs about race, sexual orientation, and to offensive phrases about blacks, Jews, gays and women.
• Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us are helping raise money for Autism Speaks.
• American Airlines and the American Association of People With Disabilities have announced plans to honor television commercials that feature positive portrayals of people with disabilities.

A new report by the U.S. Department of Labor finds that as of last spring, only 19.1 percent of American companies said they employ people with disabilities. Even fewer — 13.6 percent — reported actively recruiting people with disabilities.

The figures were compiled by the department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), based on interviews with 3,797 companies representing more than 2.4 million firms nationwide. The interviews were conducted in the first half of 2008, before the onset of the current recession.

Some of the report’s key findings:

– Among small companies (employing 5 to 14 people), only 10.7 percent reported employing people with disabilities.

– Some 53.1 percent of large companies (employing 250 or more employees) reported employing people with disabilities.

– Only 8.7 percent of companies reported hiring someone with a disability in the 12 months prior to the interview.

– Larger companies are more likely to actively recruit people with disabilities (33.8 percent) than small companies (7.8 percent), and public administration organizations are more likely to actively recruit than private sector businesses.

– When asked what type of information might convince them to recruit people with disabilities, companies that do not actively recruit cited information about performance, productivity, and benefit to the company’s profitability.

ODEP also provides a website articulating a “business case” for employing workers with disabilities, based on feedback from employers.

See related post: Americans with disabilities hit hard in downturn

From the San Diego Union-Tribune and San Diego Business Journal, Thestreet.com:

Genetic testing company Sequenom disclosed new testing data this week showing that its non-invasive prenatal test for Down syndrome no longer has a perfect record for accuracy.

After assessing 858 pregnant women, the test resulted in one false positive, while correctly detecting 28 cases of Down syndrome and delivering no false negatives. Previously, the first-trimester blood test had delivered results of 100 percent detection with no false positives and no false negatives.

Sequenom officials are touting their test as superior and safer than current screening methods and diagnostic tests, and predict it will capture a large share of the estimated $2 billion-a-year prenatal testing market.

See also:

‘Sequenom is a rule breaker’ — Motley Fool

From Forbes:

Sequenom, Inc., the company promising a more accurate prenatal blood test for Down syndrome, is selected as the Forbes.com “Stock of the Week.”

One promising prenatal test that has helped to propel shares of Sequenom is one that uses noninvasive prenatal diagnostic technology to quantify maternal plasma DNA sequences for fetal Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome. Early testing in Hong Kong of pregnant women in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy was promising. Of the 28 subjects under observation, all 14 cases of Down syndrome were correctly identified.

… Closing at $25.54 on Wednesday, shares of Sequenom are up 202% in the past 12 months, and about 15% off of their 52-week high of $29.14 on Sept. 25, 2008. Shares got down to $12.71 on Nov. 20 but have since doubled.