Congress considers adding school nurses

From the [Newark] Star-Ledger:

As more kids with more complicated health issues are attending mainstream public schools, school nurses are being called upon to provide care they once administered only in hospitals. A bill pending in Congress would offer grants to states to help pay for more school nurses.

Federal statistics say the number of students with chronic or acute health problems like leukemia, diabetes and asthma has doubled in recent years. “They’re actually managing more children with special needs, and we’re able to keep them in the school setting as a result of the school nurses,” said a doctor who serves 15 school districts in central New Jersey. “The kids have more complex medical issues. It’s not uncommon for kids to have feeding tubes, tracheostomies.”

From the New York Times:

Forty years after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, the federal government has plans to make it easier for former veterans to get disability payments and health care for illnesses they say were caused by exposure to the toxic defoliant.

The shift underscores efforts by the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, a retired Army chief of staff and a Vietnam veteran himself, to reduce obstacles to sick or disabled veterans’ receiving benefits. The department has come under sharp criticism from Congress and veterans groups for long delays in processing disability claims.

“Since my confirmation as secretary, I’ve often asked why, 40 years after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, we’re still trying to determine the health consequences to our veterans who served in the combat theater,” Mr. Shinseki said in a statement. “Veterans who endure a host of health problems deserve timely decisions.”

It’s estimated that the policy change could prompt claims from 200,000 veterans.

From ABC News:

Because summer camps traditionally don’t serve kids with disabilities, specialty camps designed specifically for them are cropping up around the country.

“Summer camp is just part of Americana, and if you’ve got children with particular special needs it’s just very difficult for them to readily fit into a mainstream setting,” said Sean Nienow, the director of the National Camp Association. “Camps are set up with a lot of physical activity and are not set up to cater special needs.”

ABC profiles some specialty camps:

• Camp Twitch and Shout (outside Atlanta) for children with Tourette’s syndrome;
• Adventure Amputee Camp (Bryson, N.C.) for children with amputations;
• Cap I-Thonka-Chi (Meridian, TX) for children with traumatic burns;
• Camp Sunshine (outside Atlanta) for children with cancer;
• Camp Heartland (Minneapolis) for children who are infected with HIV/AIDs or have family members who are; and
• Camp Celiac (North Scituate, R.I.) for children with celiac disease.

… One boy at the Adventure Amputee Camp spoke for all the special needs campers when he was asked what he liked best about camp: “No one is staring, asking what’s wrong with you or criticizing your faults.”

See also:

‘At Camp Twitch and Shout, Tourette kids can be themselves’ – CNN

(ABC News photo)

From the BBC News and New York Times:

The deaths of noted British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife, Joan, have reopened  an international debate about assisted suicide for the terminally ill. The pair drank a lethal cocktail of barbituates at the Swiss right-to-die clinic, Dignitas.

Friends said that Sir Edward, 85, was not known to be terminally ill but he wanted to die with his wife, who was said to have had terminal cancer. Sir Edward was principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 1980 to 1991, and had led performances at Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London for more than 50 years. He was described by his children as “almost blind and increasingly deaf.”

The House of Lords last week defeated a bill that would have allowed people to travel abroad to help people with terminal illness commit suicide. Attempting suicide has not been a criminal offense in Britain since 1961, but assisting others to kill themselves is.

“With imminent health cuts, growing numbers of elderly people and increasing levels of elder abuse the very last thing we need is to put vulnerable people, many of whom already think they are a financial or emotional burden to relatives, carers and the state, under pressure to end their lives through a change in the law,” said Peter Saunders, an official with the group Care Not Killing.

See also:

‘I’m bossy. I’m ambitious. I love ideas. And I love life’ – Guardian

Baroness Campbell: Believe me, I absolutely love my life – Telegraph

Disabled peer pleads against legalizing assisted suicide – Guardian

Earlier posts here.

(Photo from the New York Times)

Charged with attempted murder; Allegedly withheld cancer treatment

From AP/ABC News,WCVB-TV Boston, Boston Globe:

A Boston-area mother who has been accused of withholding cancer treatment from her 9-year-old son with autism says people should listen to her story before judging her.

“I’m definitely not a monster,” Kristen LaBrie said in an interview.

LaBrie’s son, Jeremy Fraser, was diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer in 2006 and died in March. Prosecutors have charged LaBrie with attempted murder and child endangerment, alleging that she canceled appointments for chemotherapy treatments and did not fill many of her son’s prescriptions. She has pleaded not guilty.

The woman’s attorney, Kevin James, said LaBrie was a single mother with “severe financial problems” who bore the burden of taking care of her son.

(AP/WCVB photo)

From Nature News, Forbes, US News & World Report, BBC News, Reuters, MIT Technology Review:

People with Down syndrome rarely get most kinds of cancer, and researchers have now found a reason why: they have an extra copy of a gene that keeps tumors from growing.

A study published yesterday in the journal Nature finds that the DSCR1 gene on the extra copy of the chromosome that causes Down syndrome can starve some cancers — a finding that leads to hope of cancer treatments for the broader population.

“This is a big finding,” said Sandra Ryeom, a biologist at Children’s Hospital Boston and one of the study’s authors. “It offers us all these new targets for cancer therapy.”

Down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of the 21st chromosome, and is associated with a host of health issues including mild to moderate developmental disabilities and a heightened incidence of heart problems and Alzheimer’s disease. Yet research has also found that people with Down syndrome are highly resistant to cancer, with a mortality rate that is less than one tenth that of the general population.

Ryeom said she hoped the study could lead to the creation of preventive therapies that would protect people against developing cancer. But other researchers cautioned against too much optimism, saying the study may not lead to effective anti-cancer drugs any time soon.

Earlier post here.

Helps people end their lives even if they’re not terminally ill

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Associated Press:

Critics say a Georgia-based  group is undermining efforts to win national acceptance for assisted suicide by aiding in the deaths of people who are not terminally ill.

Members of the group Final Exit say they simply want to extend the right to die to people who believe their lives are not worth living. Four members of the group were arrested in a sting operation last week and are being charged in the death of John Celmer, a man who was disfigured after several surgeries on his head and neck. Celmer had previously had cancer, but was cancer-free at the time of his death.

Authorities say the group may have been involved in as many as 200 deaths.

Stephen Drake of the group Not Dead Yet, an advocacy group for people with disabilities that opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia, said the group’s activities are “predatory.”

“These are people who get off on being there for death. They target certain types of people,” he said. “And when we make laws, when we talk about people who want to commit suicide, we’re getting into very dangerous territory.”

See also:

• Assisted suicide group may have had role in 130 deaths – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Woman who killed sick sons wants assisted suicide legalized – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Preparing to End Her Life, While Protecting Another – New York Times