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NOT A QUESTION!
Please post your favorite news or current event that has happened or you read about today. I am curious to see news thru others eyes!
Mine is about the man who robbed a bank for $1 so he could get medical attention.
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BTW I know some of you can’t post links. You can tell us what it is and where you found it tho!
Bam Margera almost collapsed from weeping so hard because his friend Ryan Dunn, the guys from the Jackass shows died in a car crash.
This happened in Pennsylvania, a little ways from where I live.
I do feel bad for the deceased, but he also was extremely intoxicated and driving really fast in his Porsche.
Planned Parenthood turning away patients? Where are these Medicaid patients supposed to go now?
INDIANAPOLIS – Thousands of low-income Planned Parenthood of Indiana patients were left fending for themselves Tuesday to pay for birth control, breast exams, Pap tests and other medical services while a court battle continued over a new state law that eliminated the organization’s Medicaid funding.
Planned Parenthood began turning away Medicaid patients who couldn’t pay for its medical services Tuesday, one day after private donations that had paid those patients’ bills ran out.
A state law that took effect May 10 denied Planned Parenthood the Medicaid funds it uses to pay for general health services it provides to low-income women at its 28 Indiana clinics. The group is seeking a preliminary injunction to block Indiana’s law, and a ruling is expected by July 1.
As Planned Parenthood awaits that ruling, the group said about 9,300 Medicaid patients — both women and men enrolled in the state-federal health insurance program for low-income and disabled people — are now facing “disrupted” medical services under the state’s law.
Nicole Robbins, a 31-year-old single mother who has been a Planned Parenthood client for six years, said she had intended to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic in Indianapolis on Tuesday to pick up a 2-month supply of birth control pills. Then, the Medicaid recipient learned that the more than $100,000 in private donations the group had raised since May 10 had dried up.
The Ivy Tech Community College student from Indianapolis who is pursuing a physical therapy degree said she’s not sure how she’ll pay for her birth control.
“There are a lot of people who don’t have jobs, who don’t have income, and Medicaid is their only source of income as far as health insurance,” she said. “I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
The Medicaid de-funding measure took effect the same day that Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the law. But other provision of the law that gives the state some of the nation’s tightest restrictions on abortions won’t take effect until July 1.
Those include a ban on abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy unless there is a substantial threat to the woman’s life or health and a requirement that doctors ensure women seeking an abortion are told that life begins at conception.
Planned Parenthood sued the state May 10, arguing that the de-funding measure is unconstitutional and violates federal law.
The Obama administration said in a June 1 letter that the state’s new Medicaid plan cutting funding for Planned Parenthood violated federal law. The Justice Department filed a brief last week supporting Planned Parenthood’s request for an injunction.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt has given the state until Friday to respond to that brief. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, who said the state would appeal the Obama administration’s ruling on Indiana’s Medicaid plan, has called the Justice Department filing “inappropriate.”
If Pratt does not rule in Planned Parenthood’s favor by July 1, the organization plans to begin closing health centers and reducing staff. All but one of its 28 statewide clinics will be closed Wednesday — and most employees will be on a one-day unpaid furlough as a cost-saving step.
“The one-day furlough should allow us to save enough money to keep our doors open during this brief window between now and the expected ruling by July 1,” Betty Cockrum, Planned Parenthood of Indiana president and CEO, said Monday in a statement.
Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kate Shepherd said the group’s Indiana clinics have about 85,000 patients.
She said the group’s 9,300 Medicaid patients who’ve lost their funding might be able to tap into Planned Parenthood’s Women’s Health Fund to pay for health services, if funds are available at the particular clinics they visit. Shepherd said they also can seek funding through three other federal family planning programs.
She declined to speculate Tuesday on how quickly Medicaid funding might be restored if Pratt sides with Planned Parenthood, or discuss whether that funding could remain held up if the state decides to appeal such a ruling.
“We have to wait and see what happens, but obviously it would be our hope to restore services as soon as possible,” Shepherd said.
Zoeller spokesman Bryan Corbin also declined to comment.
“Until we see a ruling we‘re not even going to begin to speculate,” he said Tuesday.
Brittany Eades, a 20-year-old from Greenwood, Ind., was sitting in her car Tuesday morning outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Indianapolis waiting for it to open so she could buy birth control pills. She said the state’s law impacting Medicaid patients makes no sense to her.
“They‘re on Medicaid for a reason, because they need that help,” Eades said. “It’s really unfair.”
I haven’t heard much news today that doesn’t involve local flooding.
Two women (two seperate cars) died trying to drive on a section of flooded road in the northern part of our country and the water swept them downstream.
Early Chemical Exposures May Affect Breast Health: Report Scientists say common chemicals should be tested for their possible harm to milk gland development
By Kathleen Doheny, HealthDay News
WEDNESDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News)—Exposure to common chemicals during critical periods of breast development may affect breast growth, the ability to breast-feed and breast cancer risk, a new report contends.
Some of these chemicals are found in ordinary household products such as certain types of plastic water bottles, canned foods and laundry detergents, the researchers noted.
With this in mind, the study authors called for chemical test guidelines for industry requiring that scientists test the chemicals’ effects on early mammary gland development.
Scientists from the U.S. National Institutes for Environmental Health Sciences, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Silent Spring Institute collaborated on the report, published online June 22 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
“If we try to figure out what causes breast cancer, we have to look at the breast when we do the chemical safety tests,” said Ruthann Rudel, research director at Silent Spring.
Currently, protocols for testing don’t require looking at mammary tissues, Rudel said, so it is rarely done. “We could be missing a lot,” she said.
Experts believe these early disturbances in mammary glands due to chemical exposure may boost the risk of harmful effects later in life. These could include impaired lactation (secretion of breast milk), abnormal breast growth in men and breast cancer.
One impetus for the study, in fact, was an increase in early breast development in girls, which is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer.
The report also noted that although experts recommend that all infants be breast-fed exclusively for six months, some 3 million to 6 million women in the United States are unable to produce milk or have difficulty breast-feeding each year.
The scientists interviewed 18 experts, reviewed research and discussed the issue at a workshop in late 2009. They are submitting a request to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), asking it to add mammary tissue testing to its guidelines.
The international organization develops guidelines for testing of chemicals for safety, human health effects and environmental effects. “It’s a call for government agencies that develop policy to make sure mammary gland assessment is required,” Rudel said.
Industry representatives said they welcomed the review.
“This workshop, which provided a forum for scientific discussion, did not produce data or outcomes relevant to consumers, and thus comments from the meeting should not cause undue concern,” said Kathryn St. John, spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council. “Based on their review of animal studies conducted by the participating scientists, the group considered ways to change chemicals safety testing, and discussed the relevance of potential scientific outcomes to human health.”
According to Rudel, the three main findings of the review were:
Rodents are a reasonable test models and should be used to test for dangers to humans.
The breast can be more sensitive to the chemical exposure than other tissues, and in some cases the male mammary tissue was most sensitive.
Chemical exposure to the developing mammary gland can alter susceptibility to cancer-causing agents.
In the report, the experts concluded that early life environmental exposures can alter milk gland development, disrupt the secretion of breast milk, and increase susceptibility to breast cancer. “Assessment of mammary gland development should be incorporated in chemical test guidelines and risk assessment,” they added.
Among the chemicals known to affect breast development and cancer susceptibility in animal studies, according to the report, are pesticides such as atrazine, used in agriculture; dioxins, an industrial pollutant found in some fatty foods; bisphenol A (BPA), found in some water bottles and canned foods; polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants, and nonylphenol (a breakdown product found in certain laundry detergents).
While efforts are being made to curb some of these chemical exposures, the experts said required testing is crucial. Rudel speculated that women with genetic predispositions to breast cancer might be at higher risk from these exposures.
The study authors declared no financial conflicts of interest.
The review is “raising a necessary red flag,” said Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. She reviewed the report but was not involved in it.
Naidenko agreed that there has been a gap in studying the effect of chemical exposure on the mammary gland. “For many chemicals, researchers have not looked at it.”
Meanwhile, she said, while some exposures are difficult to avoid, there are steps to take to minimize exposure.
Avoiding the plastic BPA in bottles (which some manufacturers have discontinued using) is one step. Buying organic produce whenever possible may also help consumers avoid the pesticide atrazine.
Avoiding canned foods (which can also have BPA in the liners) and the chemical DEHP by focusing on a fresh food diet can also reduce the levels of those chemicals in the body, according to the Silent Spring Institute.
Thx everyone I really enjoyed reading your news!
Here is a bit I came across today:
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This is about Princess Diana’s dresses
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