An alarmingly high number of Latina teens in New York have tried to commit suicide, and city officials want to know why. "It's a startling problem," said Julissa Ferraras, head of the City Council Committee on Women's Issues, which is holding a hearing on the issue Monday.
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The Obama administration’s plan to overhaul the American healthcare industry is silent on making healthcare a legal fundamental right in American law. The history of making healthcare a legal fundamental right in the United States was the subject of a recent State University of New York television interview with Kevin Antoine, JD, Chief Diversity Officer at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.
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(WAPO) At least 3 percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a "generalized and severe" epidemic, according to a report scheduled to be released by health officials tomorrow. That translates into 2,984 residents per every 100,000 over the age of 12 -- or 15,120 -- according to the 2008 epidemiology report by the District's HIV/AIDS office.
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In June 2008 Ms. Esmin Green, a 49 year old mother of six, was left in a New York City hospital psychiatric waiting room for 24 hours without receiving medical attention.
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(BBN Editor: Small Smiles treats some of the nations poorest children. Earlier this year a young Maryland boy died of a tooth infection when his mother couldn't afford treatment.
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(usat) The rate of antidepressant use among Americans of all ages increased nearly 400 percent over the last two decades, and 11 percent of Americans aged 12 and older now take antidepressant drugs. The analysis of 2005-2008 data from the U. S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys also showed that antidepressants are the third most common prescription drug taken by Americans of all ages and the most frequently used by those aged 18 to 44. Of people with severe depression, about one-third takes antidepressant medication.  More...

(UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS) Social safety net programs that reduce psychosocial stressors for low-income families also ultimately lead to a reduction in childhood obesity, according to research by a University of Illinois economist who studies the efficacy of food assistance programs on public health. Craig Gundersen, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois, says food and exercise alone are not to blame for the extent of obesity among children in the United States. Psychosocial factors, such as stressors brought about by uncertainty about the economy, income inequality, and a fraying social safety net also must be considered, he says. “Energy-in, energy-out is important, but energy imbalance isn’t the only thing leading to overweight status among children,” said Gundersen, the executive director of the National Soybean Research Laboratory at Illinois. “We also know that people have very different ways of responding to the same amount of food intake and exercise, and one of the factors that may influence how people react to eating and exercise is through the amount of stress they’re under.  More...

(Feministing) - The racist trope regarding abortion rates in African American communities, promoted primarily through billboard campaigns, has expanded to include Latinas. The message is very similar to the billboard that we fought against in Manhattan earlier this year, with a few exceptions. This billboard is bilingual, which means that in the Spanish version of the statement the word madre (mother) appears, and is emphasized. In the English version that attacked African-American women, the word mother, even the word woman, was entirely absent. It was a shocking contrast to the fact that the ads themselves were actually targeting Black women as the ones putting Black children in danger, even though they never actually mentioned them.  More...

(HSN) While menthol cigarettes account for approximately a third of all U. S. cigarette sales many of those sales are to teen minorities, according to a new report. In a draft report released by the U. S.  More...

(wapo) Strokes are rising dramatically among young and middle-aged Americans while dropping in older people, a sign that the obesity epidemic may be starting to shift the age burden of the disease. The numbers, reported Wednesday at an American Stroke Association conference, come from the first large nationwide study of stroke hospitalizations by age. Government researchers compared hospitalizations in 1994 and 1995 with ones in 2006 and 2007. The sharpest increase - 51 percent - was among men 15 through 34. Strokes rose among women in this age group, too, but not as fast - 17 percent.  More...

(mh) U. S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled Monday afternoon that the federal health care legislation is unconstitutional. Vinson made the decision after hearing arguments in December in the case, which pits 26 states against the federal government. Among other things the states, led by Florida, argue that the legislation passed by Congress in March and pushed by President Barack Obama is unconstitutional because it requires people to buy health care or pay a fine, a provision known as the "individual mandate.  More...

(Tomika Anderson for BE) Like many of the estimated 19 million Americans suffering from some form of depression, Shanice Watson didn’t realize the crippling mental disorder had grabbed a hold of her until her world began falling apart. Once a six-figure corporate executive with an apartment in the heart of New York City, Watson has had to get by on mostly unemployment insurance since she found herself jobless in the wake of Wall Street’s collapse two years ago—her savings, IRA funds and other rainy-day accounts all but dried up. Unable to continue paying rent on her nearly $2,000 a month one-bedroom apartment in midtown Manhattan, the 31-year-old now shares a place in Harlem with two roommates, something she has not done since her college days. “It’s been humbling,” she says. (View source to read more.  More...

(FLN) The first Center for Disease Control report detailing racial disparities had grim news about Hispanics. The report, which was released Thursday, examined health disparities by sex, race, income and education. It showed striking disparities among groups, and Hispanics tended to fall into some of the worst categories. Among the bleak findings for Hispanics: (1)…While teenage pregnancy rates fell fell among all ethnic groups, Hispanic girls (77. 4 per 1,000 females) were three times more likely than whites (26.  More...

(usat) Fluoride in drinking water — credited with dramatically cutting cavities and tooth decay — may now be too much of a good thing. Getting too much of it causes spots on some kids' teeth. A reported increase in the spotting problem is one reason the federal government will announce Friday it plans to lower the recommended levels for fluoride in water supplies — the first such change in nearly 50 years. About 2 out of 5 adolescents have tooth streaking or spottiness because of too much fluoride, a surprising government study found recently. In some extreme cases, teeth can even be pitted by the mineral — though many cases are so mild only dentists notice it.  More...

BBN Editors Note: While the report findings are alarming, we caution readers to consider this item on page 69 of the report: "the New York City Health Department collects limited demographic information for all pregnancies that end in spontaneous or induced terminations. " BBN believes that claiming Blacks and Latinos have the highest rates of abortion is a claim that deserves greater examination, analysis and consideration. . . .  More...

(CBS) Parents of kids with preexisting conditions will have fewer options in several states as major insurers are bailing on the practice of selling child-only policies. The insurance companies' decision apparently comes in response to the federal health care law passed earlier this year, which would have forced them to insure children under age 19 regardless of their medical histories. Sales of child-only policies for some companies will end the day the federal law is enacted, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. The paper reports the decision will only affect new coverage sought for children and not to existing child-only plans, family policies or insurance provided through kids' parents' employers. Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna Inc.  More...

Hello everyone Were Worth it aka wereworthit. com is always looking to give back. We would like to help not-for-profit organizations to raise money through fundraising. The organization must be located in the New York City area five boroughs. Do not contact us if you are trying to get over only legitimate organizations.  More...

FCC Broadband Plan - We must make Maximum Use of of our Spectrum Resources. We must used our Technological Strength to Increased the Capacity of our very limited Spectrum Resource (i, e, Increased Air Interface/Spectral Efficiency). Healthcare and The Internet - The Engine of Economic Growth in this 21st Century is "Broadband. " We can start by, Deployment of a pure Packet-based, All Optical/IP, Multi-Service TRANSPORT Network Infrastructure. This National "Network of Networks", in addition to New Jobs Creation and Economic Recoveyr, can also Serve as a Business Driver for: Law Enforcement Network, e-Government, e-Commerce, e-Education, Bio-Surveillance, e-HEALTHCARE, Energy/Transportation Systems, Social Network, Entertainment, etc.  More...

(wapo) The political odyssey of health care reform in many ways is the story of Ted Kennedy, and as President Obama signed the historic bill into law Tuesday, Kennedy's gravesite was a place of quiet celebration and poignant reflection. The late senator's widow, Vicki Reggie Kennedy, spent hours on Sunday at the simple white cross at Arlington National Cemetery marking where her husband was laid to rest only seven months ago. Ted Kennedy's youngest son, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.  More...

(wapo) President Obama signed a landmark health-care bill into law Tuesday, enacting a sweeping overhaul of the nation's $2. 5 trillion health system. "The bill I am signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see," Obama said before putting his signature on the legislation. While he said it would take four years to fully implement some of the law's provisions, he highlighted measures that take effect this year. In a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Obama signed the massive bill after addressing an audience that included lawmakers who supported the measure.  More...

(psych. org) The empirical study is one of the first to look at the effects of self-esteem and of racial identity and to separately explore their effects by gender. The study specifically measures racial identity in terms of ethnic pride. "Our findings indicate that -- regardless of self-esteem -- as feelings of ethnic pride go up, mental health tends to increase as well," said psychologist Jelani Mandara, associate professor at Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy. "That suggests that efforts to enhance youngsters' sense of ethnic pride at home, in the classroom and in mental health settings are not just appropriate but important to their mental health.  More...

(wapo) "I know that voting against the health-care bill will probably be the death of my political career," Cao told the Times-Picayune this year. But he added: "I have to live with myself, and I always reflect on the phrase of the New Testament, 'How does it profit a man's life to gain the world but to lose his soul?' '' . . . .  More...

(Gonzalez/nydn) Any parent skeptical about getting the new swine flu vaccine for their child needs to pay close attention to the mounting toll of this pandemic across the country. The state Health Department says four more upstate residents, including two children, died last week of H1N1. Officials are awaiting test results for a third who died in the Buffalo area. Hospitalizations for H1N1 statewide have tripled in the past two weeks. Last week, 313 people were hospitalized for swine flu - nearly 60% of them under 18.  More...

(salon) After many months of conservative claims that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are determined to engineer a "government takeover" of the private sector in order to "redistribute" income, Steele is upping the ante to suggest that Obama wants to redistribute healthcare – and perhaps even the opportunity to take another breath – as well. This should be familiar to any political observer over the age of 30 as a new version of the old "welfare wedge": the emotionally powerful conservative argument that Democrats want to use Big Government to take away the good things of life from people who have earned them and give them to people who haven't. The "welfare wedge" largely disappeared from national political life in the wake of the 1996 welfare reform initiative that eliminated any federal entitlement to cash assistance for families, imposed a work requirement for temporary assistance, and generated, for a while at least, a massive reduction in "welfare" caseloads. It returned during the latter stages of the 2008 presidential campaign, when conservative gabbers and ultimately the McCain-Palin campaign attacked Barack Obama's tax proposals as a "redistributive" effort to offer "welfare" by boosting the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit – by definition eligible only to families with earned income and stiff payroll tax liability. This was interesting not only because the EITC had long been a staple of conservative social policy, but because previous efforts to call refundable EITC payments "welfare" had been denounced by George W.  More...

(moveon) The health care fight has turned ugly, fast. And lies about reform are spreading via anonymous email chains. Here are the real facts that you need to know. View source. .  More...

(npr) striking new study says almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age. Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests. Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites. The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.  More...

(cnn) new study from Harvard Medical School found that babies who gained weight quickly had a sharply higher risk of obesity. The study followed close to 600 babies and found those in the top quarter of weight for their length at 6 months had a 40 percent higher risk of obesity by age 3 than smaller babies. . . .  More...

(nyt) Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle. When shopping for a doctor, ask if he or she is enrolled with Medicare. If the answer is no, that doctor has opted out of the system.  More...

(BBN Editors: Originally published in WAPO in 2008, but still relevant) An epidemic of obesity is compromising the lives of millions of American children, with burgeoning problems that reveal how much more vulnerable young bodies are to the toxic effects of fat. In ways only beginning to be understood, being overweight at a young age appears to be far more destructive to well-being than adding excess pounds later in life. Virtually every major organ is at risk. The greater damage is probably irreversible. Doctors are seeing confirmation of this daily: boys and girls in elementary school suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and painful joint conditions; a soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes, once a rarity in pediatricians' offices; even a spike in child gallstones, also once a singularly adult affliction.  More...

(cnn) When Maria Rubeo closed her arm, she felt something "very big -- like a lemon. " Her doctor said the lump in her breast was nothing, so Rubeo, who didn't have health insurance, didn't seek a second opinion. With two jobs and two kids, she was busy and didn't go to the doctor's office for another year. During her next visit, with a different doctor, Rubeo learned she had breast cancer -- and the tumor had been there for a while. Her story may not be particularly rare.  More...

(Dr. Leonard Sax/nydn) When I first began writing prescriptions for children 22 years ago, it was unusual for a child to be taking powerful psychiatric drugs. Today it's common. How did we get here? Dr. Joseph Biederman is "chief of pediatric psychopharmacology" at Massachusetts General Hospital.  More...

(newsweek) Even before the storm, they were some of the country's neediest kids. Now, the children of Katrina who stayed longest in ramshackle government trailer parks in Baton Rouge are "the sickest I have ever seen in the U. S. ," says Irwin Redlener, president of the Children's Health Fund and a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. According to a new report by CHF and Mailman focusing on 261 displaced children, the well-being of the poorest Katrina kids has "declined to an alarming level" since the hurricane.  More...

(nyt) Studies suggest that many Hispanics may have more risk factors for developing dementia than other groups, and a significant number appear to be getting Alzheimer’s earlier. And surveys indicate that Latinos, less likely to see doctors because of financial and language barriers, more often mistake dementia symptoms for normal aging, delaying diagnosis. . . .  More...

(nyt) Infant deaths in the United States declined 2 percent in 2006, government researchers reported Wednesday, but the rate still remains well above that of most other industrialized countries and is one of many indicators suggesting that Americans pay more but get less from their health care system. Infant mortality has long been considered one of the most important indicators of the health of a nation and the quality of its medical system. In 1960, the United States ranked 12th lowest in the world, but by 2004, the latest year for which comparisons were issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that ranking had dropped to 29th lowest. This international gap has widened even though the United States devotes a far greater share of its national wealth to health care than other countries. In 2006, Americans spent $6,714 per capita on health — more than twice the average of other industrialized countries.  More...

(theroot) Not long ago, suicide and African Americans were almost never mentioned in the same breath. Despite confronting challenges from slavery to Jim Crow to structural racism, blacks rarely took their own lives. It was a positive health disparity. Until now. There is alarming evidence that the suicide rate for young African-American men is escalating, and just as much evidence of how ill-equipped America's health-care system is to handle it.  More...

(wapo) Armed with an array of plastic eggs, grapes, broccoli and a nasty looking cross-section of an artery clogged with cholesterol, Carlos Garcia was demonstrating the hidden dangers of American cooking and eating for a group of young Hispanic mothers in Silver Spring. "If you buy juice for your baby, check how much sugar it has in it," Garcia explained in Spanish. "If you cook eggs, use the white and throw away the yolk. And if you can't get to a gym, walk for half an hour each day. " Nancy Hernandez, 23, listened closely.  More...

(wapo) AIDS rates in the nation's Latino community are increasing and, with little notice, have reached what experts are calling a simmering public health crisis. Though Hispanics make up about 14 percent of the U. S. population, they represented 22 percent of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses tallied by federal officials in 2006. According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Hispanics in the District have the highest rate of new AIDS cases in the country.  More...

(reuters) Routine brain scans in a group of middle-aged people showed that 10 percent of them had suffered a stroke without knowing it, raising their risk for further strokes and memory loss, U. S. researchers said on Thursday. People with atrial fibrillation, the most common type of irregular heart beat in people over 65, had more than twice the rate of these silent strokes, they said. Silent cerebral infarctions or SCIs are brain injuries caused by a blood clot that interrupts blood flow to the brain.  More...

(popscience) For non-metrosexual men, they’re one of three pairs of shoes on the closet floor. Between the dusty brown loafers and Adidas cross-trainers lies a pair of flip-flops. In Providence they’re worn four months a year, in Florida everyday after work and in California—from birth. Flops are an extension of man’s feet, but could the pleasure of air running through ones toes be outweighed by long term complications? Research conducted at Auburn University suggests the sandals significantly change the gait of their wearer. The data, presented last month at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference in Indianapolis, showed that while wearing flops subjects had a shorter stride, exerted less downward force, and didn’t lift their feet as high as when wearing athletic shoes.  More...

(nyt) As researchers ponder growing evidence that blacks have worse outcomes than whites in the treatment of chronic disease, they often theorize that members of minorities suffer disproportionately from poor access to quality care. Now a new study of diabetes patients has found stark racial disparities even among patients treated by the same doctors. The lead author of the study said in an interview that he attributed the differences less to overt racism than to a systemic failure to tailor treatments to patients’ cultural norms. The problem, said the author, Dr. Thomas D.  More...