From the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required), an article by Lila Guterman about prenatal screening for thalassemia on the island of Cyprus.

Cyprus has a high rate of thalassemia, an inherited blood disease, and people there are required to get tested before marriage to find out whether they carry the gene. Prenatal genetic screening is voluntary, but the state pays for abortions when thalassemia is diagnosed.

Even though the Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus views abortion as a sin, it seems most people are taking that path. Without the screening program, approximately 70 babies would be born with thalassemia each year — one in every 158 births on the island. But no more than one or two such babies have been born in any year since the mid-1980s.

Ruth Schwartz Cowan, a professor of the history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania, has worked to document how and why Cypriots came to adopt and support the screening program. (Earlier post here.) After dozens of interviews on both sides of the island, she came to realize that people in every sector of society had strong reasons to consider the program ethical.

Some Western Europeans and Americans, however, have voiced doubts. They wonder whether reducing the number of people born with the disease will undermine medical care for existing patients. Others worry that the program sits on a slippery slope leading to screening programs for less-deadly diseases.

But the success on Cyprus proves those concerns are hollow, contends Ms. Cowan.

From the BBC:

The United Nations is celebrating the coming into force of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — a landmark agreement that aims to give the world’s 650 million disabled people full equality. The measure took effect earlier this month after the 20th nation ratified it, in this case Ecuador.

So far some 25 countries have ratified the convention — starting with Jamaica in March last year. The largest nations that have already ratified it include India, Mexico, the Philippines and South Africa. Spain, Hungary and Slovenia are the only EU nations on the list so far.

… disability campaigners in the UK are critical of their government’s “reservations” on residential care, segregating education, employment in the armed forces and freedom of movement for disabled people with regard to nationality and immigration

… It is estimated that about 10 percent of the world’s population lives with some sort of disability, making disabled people the world’s largest minority. This figure is likely to increase as a result of medical advances and the world’s aging population, according to the World Health Organization.

… In some countries, disabled child mortality is as high as 80 percent even when the general level of mortality for the under fives has dropped below 20 percent.

See earlier posts:

• Op-ed: Washington’s phobia of global treaties
• World leaders urged to act on disability rights

From the [UK] Guardian:

The BBC has reached the landmark of having all its shows accessible to the hard of hearing via subtitles.

… The service now offers more than 50,000 hours of subtitled content a year, including all the BBC’s national and regional programming…

From the BBC:

For the first time, Britain will conduct a census of adults with autism in order to better support them. In announcing the £500,000 project, Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis said adults with autism are too often abandoned by health and social services.

“We still don’t know enough about autism, but we do know that left unsupported, it can have a devastating impact on those who have the condition and their families, ” he said. “One of the key gaps in our knowledge is simple - we don’t know how many people have the condition in any given area.”

The group has been hard to measure partly because so many people have grown up before improvements in recognition and diagnosis; and some may have been labelled inappropriately as having mental health problems or learning difficulties or not acknowledged at all.

The National Autistic Society was enthusiastic about the effort.

Although progress has been made, attitudes still need improvement

From CBC News, Canada:

Parents of children with special needs in Canada say they still must be full-time advocates if their children are to succeed. Among the problems they face are social exclusion and a lack of adequate schooling.

“People are under the assumption that people with disabilities are taken care of,” says Zuhy Sayeed, past-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual disabilities and their families. “Most Canadians see the ramps. They see agencies for people with disabilities. So they really wonder what our issue is.”

The issue is that a ramp in front of a door does not always translate into accessibility. Full inclusion means offering supports, like classroom aides. It means awareness and training, so that staff know how to handle it when a child with autism behaves differently. It means being open to new ways of doing things when necessary …

“Just bringing your child into a mainstream classroom does not mean integration,” points out Jean Ju, a psychologist at the Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre. If no other supports are in place, children can’t participate, Ju says.

But that’s not to say it’s easy

The [Toronto] Globe and Mail offers an extended feature on travel for people with disabilities, including tips and websites with information for prospective travelers.

Quebec’s Kéroul, a non-profit organization dedicated to accessible tourism, says people with disabilities are just as likely to travel as the rest of the population, with more than half of the 4.2 million in Canada taking at least one overnight trip a year.

“It’s a normal thing to do for everybody. People with disabilities are the same as everybody else in the sense that it is important for them to experience what this life and this world have to offer, and travel is a big part of that,” says Ray Cohen, publisher and editor-in-chief of Abilities Magazine.

But although the “world is in transition,” he says, the visually impaired or physically disabled are still encountering problems everywhere from buses to train station washrooms to airplanes. “These are issues that people with disabilities cannot take for granted because it means the difference of being able to go someplace or not.”

From the Moscow Times:

Many disabled Muscovites, especially those with spinal problems, are effectively locked within the four walls of their homes — doorways and elevators are rarely big enough for wheelchairs, and the Moscow metro and bus systems are not designed for people with disabilities.

Under new rules introduced in 2006, all disabled people applying for federal benefits must have their disabilities verified by the state.

… The process takes two to four months, and while the application is in process, the applicant has no right to any allowances or other privileges. Receiving the document that certifies the disability is only a temporary victory, however. The certification is only valid for a year, and then the process starts all over again.

“They must think that my leg will grow next year while I secretly enjoy the privilege of moving around in a free wheelchair,” said Mikhail Ruchnov, 42, who has been certified as belonging to the category of people with the most severe disabilities.