The U.S. Senate will take up legislation this week that would
make it illegal for an adult to knowingly skirt a state's parental-notification law and drive a teen across state lines in order to get an abortion. (
See text and status of the bill and
read the full testimony from a 2004
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on this subject. If you'd like to see the Congressional Budget Office's 1998 cost estimate on an earlier version of the bill,
click here.)
The Associated Press reported:
Supporters of the bill say such situations often occur when a teenage girl, or the man involved, wants to evade home-state parental consent laws. Opponents say the bill would make criminals of well-meaning confidants, such as relatives and clergy members, who might help a pregnant teen whose parents are abusive.
The story continued:
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who is managing the opposition to the bill during floor debate, said, "Instead of doing something to improve the health of women and girls, the Republican leadership is spending precious time on a bill that protects incest predators, throws grandmothers in jail, and violates our Constitution."
She said Democrats would try to amend the bill, but predicted it would be passed, considering the Republicans' 55-44-1 majority.
Polls suggest there is widespread public backing for ... a parent's right to know about a child's actions regarding abortion. In polls, almost three-quarters say they think a parent has the right to give consent before a child under 18 has an abortion.
Under the bill, anyone who helps a pregnant minor cross state lines to obtain an abortion without parental knowledge could be punished by unspecified fines and up to a year in prison. The girl and her parents would not be vulnerable to criminal penalties. The measure contains an exception for those who help underage girls get such abortions to avoid life-threatening conditions.
Supporters contended the legislation is not really an abortion bill, but instead proposes new safeguards against exploitation of girls by the men who impregnate them and may put them in danger. They presented stories of girls transported over state lines who underwent botched abortions and later developed health problems.
Here are some resources from organizations that have claimed a side in this debate:
Food Companies Target Kids
The Kaiser Family Foundation is out with a new study that says more than 80 percent of top food brands are using online games to target kids. The report, "It's Child's Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children," introduces you to some new phrases: "advergaming," "webisodes" and "viral marketing," all of which appeal to kids under age 13.
Kaiser says 38 percent of food-oriented Web sites encourage children to purchase products. The report says that fewer than one in five of the advergaming sites identify the site as advertising.
The press release announcing the report says:
Unlike traditional TV advertising, these corporate-sponsored Web sites offer extensive opportunities for visitors to spend an unlimited amount of time interacting with specific food brands in more personal and detailed ways. For instance, the study documents the broad use of "advergames" (online games in which a company's product or brand characters are featured, found on 73 percent of the Web sites) and viral marketing (encouraging children to contact their peers about a specific product or brand, found on 64 percent of sites). In addition, a variety of other advertising and marketing tactics are employed on these sites, including sweepstakes and promotions (65 percent), memberships (25 percent), on-demand access to TV ads (53 percent) and incentives for product purchase (38 percent).
"Online advertising's reach isn't as broad as that of television, but it's much deeper," said Vicky Rideout, vice president and director of Kaiser's Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health, who oversaw the research. "Without good information about what this new world of advertising really looks like, there can't be effective oversight or policymaking, whether by the industry or by government," she noted. The advertising industry has announced that it is developing more detailed voluntary guidelines for online marketing to children, expected to be released shortly.
The study included detailed analysis of 77 Web sites, including more than 4,000 unique Web pages. Based on data from Nielsen NetRatings, these sites received more than 12.2 million visits from children ages 2-11 in the 2nd quarter of 2005.
About three-quarters (73 percent) of the Web sites in the study included advergames, ranging from one to more than 60 games per site. In total, the sites in the study contained 546 games featuring one or more food brands, such as the Chips Ahoy Soccer Shootout, Chuck E. Cheese's Tic Tac Toe, the M&M's Trivia Game, and the Pop-Tart Slalom. For example, on Kellogg's Fun K Town children can "race against time while collecting delicious Kellogg's cereal," and at the Lucky Charms site they can play Lucky's Magic Adventure and "learn the powers of all eight charms" found in Lucky Charms cereal. To encourage additional time spent at the Web site, many of the games promote repeat playing (71 percent), offer multiple levels of play (45 percent) or suggest other games the visitor might enjoy (22 percent).
Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of sites in the study use viral marketing, in which children are encouraged to send emails to their friends about a product, or invite them to visit the company's Web site. For example, at juicyfruit.com users were encouraged to "Send a friend this fruitylicious site!" and told that if they "send this site to five friends" they would get a code that could then be used to access additional features on the site. Other sites encourage young users to invite friends to help them "redecorate" their online "rooms," challenge them to play an advergame on the site, or send them an "e-card" featuring the company's brand or spokescharacters. For example, on Keebler's Hollow Tree Web site, children are invited to send a friend some "Elfin Magic" in a birthday or seasonal greeting.
The Associated Press
covered Kaiser's forum last week, during which it unveiled its new report.
Covering People With Disabilities
My friend Susan LoTempio wrote a piece that is so useful, you should print it out and send it around the newsroom.
Medication Errors
A new report by the Institute of Medicine says medication errors in the United States harm 1.5 million people and kill several thousand each year. The study even fixes a cost of $3.5 billion a year to medication mistakes.
The study explained [PDF]:
These medication errors are undoubtedly costly -- to patients, their families, their employers, and to hospitals, health-care providers, and insurance companies -- but there are few reliable estimates of that cost. One study found that each preventable ADE [adverse drug effects] that took place in a hospital added about $8,750 (in 2006 dollars) to the cost of the hospital stay. Assuming 400,000 of these events each year -- a conservative estimate -- the total annual cost would be $3.5 billion in this one group.
Another study looked at preventable ADEs (adverse drug effects) in Medicare enrollees aged 65 and older and found an annual cost of $887 million for treating medication errors in this group. Unfortunately, these studies cover only some of the medication errors that occur each year in this country, and they look at only some of their costs -- they do not take into account lost earnings, for example, or any compensation for pain and suffering.
What is most striking about these statistics is that much of this harm is preventable, since a variety of strategies and techniques exist for reducing medication errors. Many of these approaches have already been tested and shown to work in practice, while others seem promising but will require further development. Given this situation, the committee concluded that the current state of affairs is not acceptable and it recommended a series of steps that should be taken to prevent medication errors.
The study recommends patients take a more active part in their health care, that health care providers make better use of technology in prescribing and dispensing drugs and that drug companies clarify drug packaging and simplify wording on packages. Here are more ways for patients to reduce medication errors. There are other suggestions on The Commonwealth Fund's patient safety page, and more from the Food & Drug Administration.
For more information on medication errors, check out the FDA's Web page dedicated to the topic.
I was especially interested in a USA Today story last week about how language barriers can play into the health-care picture. Hospitals, especially, need workers who can speak the languages of their patients. The story said:
Many hospital patients who have a limited ability to speak English and who need a translator don't get one, which puts them at risk for poor and sometimes life-threatening medical care, an analysis in ... [the] New England Journal of Medicine says.
From 1990 to 2000, the number of residents with limited English proficiency grew by 7 million, to 21 million, or 8.1 percent of the population, according to U.S. Census figures. Yet, one study showed that no interpreter was used in 46 percent of emergency department cases involving such patients, says Glenn Flores, an expert on language barriers in health care who based his conclusions on his own studies and those done by other researchers.
Here are some more resources you might find useful as you research this story:
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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
