Dick Thornburgh and Paul Steven Miller, writing in the Seattle Times, urge that the U.S. sign the UN International Treaty on the Rights of People with Disabilities. The treaty could benefit one-quarter of humanity, they say: the 650 million people, as well as their families, who live with disabilities.

As former officials of two different presidential administrations, one Republican and one Democratic, we strongly believe that this treaty is consistent with American law.

… The treaty enshrines important principles that Americans hold dear: nondiscrimination, equal protection under the law and the right to autonomy and independent living in integrated, community settings.

The U.S. reluctance to sign this treaty has been painful and puzzling to us. The treaty provides important protections, beyond the specific protections of the American law, which level the playing field for people with disabilities. And we should not be so proud as to think we cannot learn from other countries about even better opportunities for people with disabilities.

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From the [Nashville] Tennesseean:

Hate crimes against Hispanic and disabled victims rose dramatically in Tennessee last year, leaving advocates for both groups concerned about the trend.

A recent Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report shows hate crimes rose 28 percent overall between 2006 and 2007, but those against Hispanics more than doubled and those against the disabled grew from 1 to 30.

Those who study social conflict say stress over the economy is a contributing force, along with an increase in the Hispanic population and related anger about immigration.

… Most of last year’s incidents involving people with disabilities were thefts, forgeries and burglaries victimizing mentally disabled persons. Donna DeStefano, assistant director of the Tennessee Disability Coalition, said the problem is likely economic, with criminals using one of society’s most vulnerable groups for money.

From the New York Times:

A retirement community affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire has become a laboratory for the ’slow medicine’ movement, allowing patients to put on the brakes when considering care that may have high risks and limited rewards for elderly people.

… it educates patients and families how to push back against emergency room trips and hospitalizations designed for those with treatable illnesses, not the inevitable erosion of advanced age.

Slow medicine, which shares with hospice care the goal of comfort rather than cure, is increasingly available in nursing homes, but for those living at home or in assisted living, a medical scare usually prompts a call to 911, with little opportunity to choose otherwise.

The movement is not without controversy.

Many in their 80s and 90s — and their boomer children — want to pull out all the stops to stay alive, and doctors get paid for doing a procedure, not discussing whether it should be done. The costliest patients — the elderly with chronic illnesses — are the only group with universal health coverage under Medicare, leading to huge federal expenditures that experts agree are unsustainable as boomers age.

(more…)

From the Sacramento [CA] Bee:

As the economy sours, advocates for people with disabilities are expressing concern about that population’s already bleak employment prospects.

A 2004 Cornell University study showed just 37.5 percent of the nation’s working-age people with disabilities were employed, compared with 77.8 percent of those without disabilities.

With the Sacramento region’s unemployment rate at 6.2 percent in February – eight-tenths of a percentage point higher than it was a year ago – some advocates say people with disabilities are taking a particularly hard hit.

“People with disabilities should not be the last hired and the first fired,” said Bryon MacDonald, of the World Institute on Disability, a public policy center in Oakland. (more…)

From AFP, BBC:

More than a third of children born before the seventh month of pregnancy are disabled, and the degree of disability rises the earlier they are born, according to a new study published in the Lancet (subscription required).

The investigation by French researchers was prompted by the fact that more and more children born prematurely are able to survive, thanks to better-equipped hospitals and better-trained staff.

A team led by Pierre-Yves Ancel and Beatrice Larroque of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research looked at the health of 1,817 five-year-old French children who had been born between 22 and 32 weeks of pregnancy.

… ‘These results raise questions about health and provision of rehabilitation services, and the cost of these services to families and society,” wrote the study’s authors.

Full-term pregnancies last about 40 weeks.

See related story: Survival of early babies doubles, from the [UK] Telegraph.

The abortion debate is reignited today as figures show that survival rates of babies born very prematurely have doubled in the past 20 years.

A study at one of Britain’s top neonatal units found that one third of babies born between 22 and 25 weeks’ gestation survived in the early 1980s but this had risen to 71 per cent by the late 1990s.

The biggest improvements were among the 24 and 25-week babies.

Campaigners have already called for the 24-week abortion limit to be lowered, but experts have previously argued there has been little improvement in the chances of babies born very early.

The findings are set to spark a further row over abortion as MPs are tabling amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to either liberalise terminations or restrict them. The 24-week limit was set in 1990.

From United Press International, Science Daily:

Americans living in states with wide income gaps are more likely than others to have disabilities affecting daily tasks, researchers said.

“We’ve always known personal income and education can affect one’s health outcomes,” said Esme Fuller-Thomson, study co-author and assistant professor of social work at the University of Toronto. “What we didn’t know until now was the substantial strength of the relationship between state-level income inequality and disability.”

The research, Fuller-Thomson said, shows “individuals have a higher likelihood of physical disability when they live in states where wealth is distributed very unevenly.”

The findings are published in the November issue of the British journal Public Health.