REPORT: Kids Ingest Potentially Poisonous Medication 500,000 Times Per Year

By Sy Mukherjee on Mar 20, 2013 at 6:15 pm

According to a new report by the children’s medical safety advocacy group Safe Kids Worldwide, “a parent or caregiver calls a poison control center after a young child gets into medication, or is given the wrong dose of medicine” every single minute due to unsecured pills and bottles.

In a press release accompanying the report, Safe Kids Worldwide CEO Kate Carr said, “Ask any parent, and they will tell you they store medicine where children can’t get them. But they might not be thinking of pills stored in purses, vitamins left on counter tops or a diaper rash remedy near a changing table.” The findings, summarized in a report infographic below, support results from a 2012 study by the group finding that child poisoning deaths from medications doubled between 1979 and 2006:

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LGBT

House Republicans’ Final Written Argument Against Marriage Equality: Nuh-Uh!

By Zack Ford on Mar 20, 2013 at 6:04 pm

House Republicans' Attorney Paul Clement

House Republicans have filed a reply brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court, but the arguments boil down to “nuh-uh” or “just because” responses to Edie Windsor’s attorneys. Though it reiterates many of the arguments made in their initial brief, here’s a summary of the final written arguments against marriage equality in the DOMA case:

Same-sex marriage is still an “experiment,” so Congress was allowed to be cautious: “But when Hawaii was poised to become the first jurisdiction in the United States to deviate from the traditional definition, there was nothing incautious about retaining the traditional definition as the federal definition while states began a process of experimentation. That approach was a rational exercise in caution and a rational approach to the issue given our system of dual sovereignty.”
It’s more “uniform” to ban all same-sex marriages than to recognize all valid marriages: “But the federal sovereign has a unique interest in treating a survivor of a same-sex relationship in New York the same as a survivor of a same-sex relationship in Oklahoma. And DOMA rationally furthers that uniquely federal interest in nationwide uniformity.”
Most states ban same-sex marriage, so it’s rational that Congress did it too: “It bears emphasis that the traditional definition was the only definition at the time of DOMA’s enactment and remains the rule in more than 80% of the jurisdictions.”
Children are better off with their biological parents: “DOMA’s opponents challenge as irrational the long-held cultural judgment that a child’s biological parents are, other things being equal, the child’s natural and most suitable guardians.”
Only straight couples need marriage because only they have kids accidentally: “Marriage as an institution is linked to the unique tendency of opposite-sex couples to produce unintended offspring and the societal interest in providing a stable structure for raising such children.”
DOMA doesn’t deny marital eligibility to same-sex couples: “DOMA defines terms for purposes of federal law; it does not deny marital eligibility— which remains a matter of state law—to anyone.”
Gays aren’t politically powerless like women because women were discriminated against under the law: “The Court’s application of heightened scrutiny, despite the majority status and substantial achievements of women, was explained instead by over a century of official disenfranchisement that left the statute books littered with laws based on outdated stereotypes.”
Sexual orientation is a behavior, not an identity: “Unlike the recognized suspect classes, sexual orientation is defined by a tendency to engage in a particular kind of conduct.”
Let democracy play out on same-sex marriage so opponents aren’t called bigots: “The democratic process requires opposing sides to attempt to persuade each other, to understand each other’s positions, and perhaps, at least temporarily, to reach compromises that both sides can accept. A constitutional right to same-sex marriage, on the other hand, could be achieved only by marginalizing, as bigoted at worst or irrational at best, the ‘profound and deep convictions’ of those who disagree.”

Some of these arguments are simply rhetorical speculation (“experiment,” “uniform”), others are completely untrue (DOMA rejects states that recognize same-sex marriages, gays do have a history of disenfranchisement under the law), and others defy the lived experiences of gays and lesbians and their families (children who are adopted, sexual orientation as an identity). None of them reflect reality, and none of them should survive the scrutiny of the Court’s questions next week.

(HT: Kathleen Perrin.)

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Health

If Genetically Engineered Seafood Enters U.S. Market, Major Grocery Stores Say They Won’t Sell It

By Katie Valentine on Mar 20, 2013 at 5:30 pm

A group of major grocery retailers — including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Aldi — have pledged not to sell genetically engineered (GE) seafood if it’s approved in the U.S., Friends of the Earth announced Wednesday. The retailers are among more than 2,000 national and local grocery stores that have signed a pledge as part of the environmental group’s new campaign to push grocery stores to refuse to sell GE seafood.

The announcement comes as the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to approve what would be the first non-plant GE food to enter the U.S. market. AquAdvantage Salmon — which contain a Chinook salmon gene allowing the fish to grow about twice as fast as a wild Atlantic salmon — passed the FDA’s environmental assessment, which was released last year. Along with salmon, the Center for Food Safety reports that there are at least 34 other species of fish undergoing GE development around the world, including tilapia, trout and flounder.

The debate surrounding genetically modified foods, or GMOs, has intensified in recent months. Whole Foods announced earlier this month that it would label all GMO foods sold in Whole Foods stores by 2018, becoming the first national grocery store to set a timeline on GMO labeling. California’s Proposition 37, which would have mandated GMO labeling in the state, was narrowly defeated in November, after food industry giants like Monsanto and Hershey poured $44 million dollars into an anti-Prop 37 campaign. Polling shows that more than 90 percent of consumers support GMO labeling, and a 91 percent of Americans don’t want GE meat and fish in the U.S. marketplace.

The grocery retailers’ pledges are encouraging, but they don’t make up for the FDA’s oversight in labeling GE salmon as environmentally sound. Opponents of GE seafood stress that not enough research has been done on its health effects, and that GE fish could pose an environmental threat if they escape into open waters. With their ability to grow more quickly than other salmon, GE salmon could out-compete wild salmon for food and space, and could potentially mate with wild seafood, weakening the wild species’ gene pool. AquAdvantage’s developer AquaBounty maintains that all of its salmon are grown as sterile females, but during a 2010 FDA hearing, AquaBounty clarified that 95 to 99 percent of its salmon were sterile — which means up to 750,000 of the eggs AquaBounty plans to grow could be fertile. On top of that, even farmed salmon that aren’t genetically modified pose potential health and environmental risks — they typically contain higher concentrations of PCBs, pesticides and other toxins; generate vast amounts of waste, which pollutes the water surrounding their pens and can harbor disease; and emit nearly as much greenhouse gasses as pork. GE farmed salmon will also carry all those risks.

There are still many other grocery retailers in the U.S. that haven’t signed the pledge, which means that if AquAdvantage salmon are approved, they will still find their way into the American market. The FDA hasn’t had much success with encouraging the food industry to self-regulate on its own, so the federal government will need a broader policy to limit Americans’ exposure to GMO foods — by labeling them or, in the case of GE salmon, by keeping them off shelves altogether.

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Justice

Even Texas’ Conservative AG Supports Required DNA Testing In Capital Cases

By Nicole Flatow on Mar 20, 2013 at 5:30 pm

Even in death row cases, criminal defendants have no right to test potentially exonerating DNA evidence. In a move to prevent wrongful convictions in the state with the highest number of both executions and DNA exonerations, a Texas legislator is proposing a measure to require prosecutors to test available DNA evidence before seeking the death penalty. The bill’s chances of success were significantly bolstered with the unlikely support of one of the state’s most prominent and conservative legal figures: Attorney General Greg Abbott. The Dallas Observer’s Eric Nicholson reports on the move, in an aptly titled post, “Greg Abbott Backs DNA-Testing Bill, Continues Unprecedented Streak of Reasonableness”:

“There’s no reason to test these items more than a decade after the crime was committed,” Abbott said Tuesday at a news conference alongside the bill’s author, Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat. “We shouldn’t live with suspense. The family of the victim shouldn’t have to through this time after time after time in order to get certainty.”

Abbott is careful to frame his support for Ellis’ bill mainly as an effort to help victims’ families, but it comes, of course, in the wake of an embarrassingly high number of overturned convictions. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 53 prisoners have been freed by DNA evidence, two of whom were serving on death row.

Nicholson points out that Abbott may also support the bill as a means of strengthening support for the death penalty, which Ellis also supports. There are ever-growing reasons to believe that the death penalty is not a good idea in any case. But Texas, home to one-third of the entire country’s executions, should at the very least test defendants’ DNA before seeking to take their lives. And they should do more. Earlier this month, the chief justice of the state’s supreme court once again called for a commission to investigate all wrongful convictions, many with defendants who could have benefited from DNA testing whether or not they faced the death penalty, and many more in which DNA evidence was never available to begin with.

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Alyssa

ABC Family, Save ‘Bunheads’!

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Mar 20, 2013 at 5:04 pm

Yesterday brought the news that HBO had cancelled Enlightened, Mike White’s brilliant series about how to live in accordance with your principals in a corporate world—particularly when you have a lot of debt, or the costs of activism have grown extraordinary. For all that I’m disappointed in the decision and think that it was a mistake for HBO’s brand—despite Enlightened‘s extremely low ratings, it was the kind of show that couldn’t have been produced by any other network—I don’t see it as a tragedy for the story White was telling. After Amy Jellicoe blew the whistle on Abaddon Industries and was fired, Enlightened had her walk off into a sunny California day, anonymous again among the crowd, alone with the knowledge of what she’d accomplished and unsure of what came next for her. But her time at the company was finished, and Amy had decisively acted in accordance with her beliefs. That story was concluded.

But there’s another brilliant, strange, female-centered show that’s still awaiting a decision on whether it will be renewed or cancelled. And I dearly hope that ABC Family decides to make the right decision and save Bunheads, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s dramedy about the proprietors of and students at a California ballet school.

Bunheads has a less determined story arc than Enlightened, and by design, smaller stakes. It follows Michelle (Sutton Foster), a Vegas showgirl who marries a fan, moves to California with him, and ends up owning a great deal of property when he’s suddenly killed in a car accident—and tied to his mother, ballet teacher Fanny (Kelly Bishop), as well. Her students Boo (Kaitlyn Jenkins), Sasha (Julia Goldani Telles), Ginny (Bailey Buntain), and Melanie (Emma Dumont) are intelligent, idiosyncratic young ladies who find themselves galvanized by Michelle’s arrival, which coincides with them reaching the stage of life where they’re deciding how serious they want to be about dance, whether they want to have sex, and what their relationships to their parents are going to look like. The characters don’t have life-or-death problems—at least not after the fatal car ride in the pilot—but they don’t lack for gravity.

Bunheads is a relentlessly female show, more so than any other program on television, and therein lies many of its strengths. Where Girls, after the fight that fractured Marnie and Hannah’s relationship in the first season, has moved its focus away from female friendships, the relationships between women are always primary in Bunheads. Much of the first half of the season followed Michelle and Fanny attempting to navigate an exceedingly difficult situation. Fanny was surprised by the arrival of Michelle as her daughter-in-law and even more disconcerted when her son’s death left Michelle the owner of Fanny’s home, business, and land. Gradually, they’ve navigated a professional and personal partnership, finding a way to run Fanny’s ballet school together and to build an amphitheater on the land left to Michelle. That amphitheater brings them into collaboration with two sisters, the constantly self-deprecating Truly (Stacey Oristano) and bulldozer Millicent (Liza Weil) Stone, who, in one scene, explains to Fanny that she doesn’t actually want to know about the arts, she just wants to be perceived as cultured. Truly and Milly’s rivalry is one of the best examples I’ve seen of exaggeration serving the truth: there’s no way to make a relationship between sisters stranger and more hilariously tortured than they can be in real life.

And the friendships between the students have delightfully specific, and believable, contours. Ginny is hurt when Melanie hides from her that she’s joined the roller derby in addition to ballet. Sasha calls Boo, rather than her parents, when she finds the door to her apartment open and is afraid to go inside. Ginny, Melanie, and Boo feel betrayed when Sasha makes a foray into cheerleading. The four research sex from every conceivable angle together when they’re considering sleeping with their boyfriends, only to be stumped by the condom options at the local drug store. And they’re all invested enough in Michelle to follow her on a road trip when they catch her sneaking off to Los Angeles for a dance audition. Michelle may not be the mentor all of them need in matters of the heart or how to run their lives—judging by her brief, impulsive marriage, she has enough trouble of her own. But they need creative inspiration as much as they need basic life skills advice, someone who can act as a reminder to them that the world is bigger than a little town in California, and that they’ll face bigger decisions than whether or not Boo and her boyfriend Carl should jump up their timetable for the first time they have sex. I could spend an infinite amount of time with these clever young girls and their daily dilemmas.
Read more

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Health

As Sexual Violence Intensifies, India Considers Strengthening Its Penalties For Rape

By Hayes Brown on Mar 20, 2013 at 4:40 pm

Protester at Dec. 18 rally in New Dehli

A new law strengthening the penalty for rape passed the lower house of India’s Parliament recently, a bright point in India’s still troubled relationship with sexual assault and violence.

Should the legislation pass India’s upper house, it would provide an increase of the minimum prison sentence for gang-rape to twenty years, that can be extended to life in jail. It also adds the opportunity for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in cases of rape that result in death or leave the victim in a coma. Most promising of all, the revised law would make other sex-based crimes such voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women punishable under criminal law. “This is just a first step in a journey of 1,000 miles,” MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, a woman MP a regional party, said before the vote.

The revised law originally was developed in response to the brutal gang rape of a young Indian woman — identified as Jyoti Signh Pandi — in December, which sparked mass protests throughout the country. Pandi later died from the massive injuries obtained, leading to her alleged assailants being charged with murder, rape, and kidnapping.

Recent actions taken to strengthen the punishment of these crimes does not lessen the long way that India still has to go when it comes to combating sexual violence. According to a recent report from a United Nations panel, in India “every 60 minutes two women are raped, and every six hours a young married woman is found beaten to death, burnt or driven to suicide.” The stigma that surrounds these crimes, however, leads to a severe underreporting of rape, particularly in the case of women in lower castes.

Tourists are also becoming more frequent targets of attacks, as evidenced in the case of a British woman on the same day the new rape law moved forward in Parliament. The woman was forced to leap through an open window in her hotel room to escape the advances of the hotel owner, fracturing both of her legs:

Police arrested the hotel owner in connection with the incident in Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal, one of India’s most cherished tourist attractions, [police officer Sushaunt] Gaur said. No charges have been filed.

The woman told the police that the hotel owner kept knocking on her door persistently and even tried to unlock the door after she refused his offer of a free massage.

A Swiss tourist was the vicitim of gang-rape just weeks ago in the Indian state Madhya Pradur while cycling with her husband. In that instance, the state’s Home Minister suggested that the tourist herself was at fault for not alerting the police of her travel plans. Another incident of gang rape was reported in the same state on Tuesday, in which two minors were assaulted at gunpoint in their family’s home.

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Climate Progress

Utah Schoolchildren Asked To Celebrate Fossil Fuels And Mining On Earth Day

By Ryan Koronowski on Mar 20, 2013 at 4:37 pm

Earth Day is April 22, and today is the last day children in Utah can send in their submissions for the state-sponsored Earth Day poster contest lauding fossil fuel production.

This year’s theme is “Where Would WE Be Without Oil, Gas & Mining?”

Last year’s theme was “How Do YOU Use Oil, Gas, and Mining?”

The contest is literally made possible by fossil fuel interests. This year’s sponsors include the Salt Lake Petroleum Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining. Last year’s sponsor list was longer, including Arch Coal, Anadarko Petroleum, and Rio Tinto/Kennecott Utah Copper.

Any child in Utah between Kindergarten and sixth grade is eligible. The contest’s primary objective is “to improve students’ and the public’s awareness of the important role that oil, gas, and mining play in our everyday lives.” Last year’s contest winners made posters that detailed how dependent we have become on fossil fuels. To their credit, the grand prize winner detailed both ways we use products created by fossil fuels and ways we can reduce our consumption.

The children were not asked to make posters about the climate impacts caused by those same fossil fuels: drought, wildfires, and warmer winters.

Some parents are not happy, as this letter to the editor by Colby Poulson makes clear:

Why is the state backing an “Earth Day” contest that celebrates fossil fuels, while completely ignoring the adverse effects that their use and extraction can too often have on our air quality, water quality, public lands and the other organisms we share the world with? Shouldn’t Earth Day be about championing things that can help reverse the negative impact of our dependence on fossil fuels?

Frankly, I’m disgusted that the state is backing propaganda like this in our schools.

Why allow a contest like this to run two years in a row? The state could be taking its cues from its Congressional delegation, one of whom runs the House Science subcommittee and denies the reality of human-caused climate change. Or its state legislature, which in 2010 adopted a resolution doubting the reality of climate change.

Perhaps they missed the Salt Lake Tribune‘s editorial, “A killing climate: Global warming unchecked,” or those Utah scientists who reported:

Based on extensive scientific research, there is very high confidence that human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are responsible for most of the global warming observed during the past 50 years. It is very unlikely that natural climate variations alone, such as changes in the brightness of the sun or carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes, have produced this recent warming. …

Utah is projected to warm more than the average for the entire globe and the expected consequences of this warming are fewer frost days, longer growing seasons, and more heat waves.

Appropriately, the winners of the Earth Day poster contest will be notified on April Fool’s Day.

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Justice

Four Former Pennsylvania Governors Want To End Judicial Elections

By Nicole Flatow on Mar 20, 2013 at 4:30 pm

The corrosive influence of increased spending and politicking surrounding judicial elections has manifested itself around the country, most recently in the conviction of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice for corruption linked to her own judicial campaign. But moves to change the process for selecting judges face an uphill battle. This month, four former Pennsylvania governors – two from each party – are capitalizing on the recent conviction of Joan Orie Melvin to highlight the problem of political influence on judges and vie for a constitutional amendment to change the process.

A bill endorsed by the governors would have candidates for appellate courts in the state approved by a commission and then nominated by the governor, insulating them from the fundraising demands of a judicial election that may sway judges’ decision-making.

“When it comes to statewide judges, very few voters know who they are, and if they do know who they are, it’s for the wrong reasons,” said former Republican governor Dick Thornburgh, now working for the law firm K&L Gates. The former governors warned in a call Monday that judicial elections give the dangerous impression that judicial elections are for sale and cast a “very dark shadow” over the integrity of what should be neutral arbiters. To pass such an amendment, the Legislature would have to vote on the issue in two consecutive sessions, and then hold a referendum.

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Economy

House Democratic Budget Focuses On Infrastructure And Job Creation, Reduces Deficit By $1.7 Trillion

By Aviva Shen on Mar 20, 2013 at 4:00 pm

20 days after automatic sequestration cuts went into effect, Congress is still trying to reconcile House Republicans’ and Senate Democrats’ budget proposals. On Wednesday, House Democrats introduced their own vision for the federal budget, promising to balance the budget by 2040 without the draconian spending cuts proposed by the GOP, while offering double the stimulus funding in the Senate Democratic plan.

The House Democrats’ budget, authored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), includes $1.2 trillion in revenues and reduces the deficit by $1.7 trillion, slightly less than the Senate’s goal of $1.85 trillion. Other highlights include:

$200 billion in stimulus. Like the Senate budget, House Democrats set aside $50 billion for urgent infrastructure repairs, but sets aside an additional $10 billion to establish an infrastructure bank. Borrowing from President Obama’s blocked American Jobs Act, the House budget surpasses the Senate’s on funding to boost employment for teachers, police officers, firefighters, and veterans. $19 billion is also set aside as a tax credit for businesses that increase their payroll.

A focus on job growth. The Century Foundation estimates Van Hollen’s budget would boost GDP growth by .4 percent and add roughly 450,000 jobs more than under current policy in 2013, while cancelling sequestration would add even more. The House GOP budget, in turn, would keep sequestration in place, eliminating 750,000 jobs in 2013 and more than 2 million in 2014. Compared to the House GOP budget, Van Hollen’s budget would boost GDP 1.8 percent and add more than 2.1 million jobs by 2014.

Protection for the safety net. While the Republicans’ plan would end the guaranteed Medicare benefit, privatize health insurance for seniors and turn Medicaid into a block grant program run by the states, the House Democrats affirms protections for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Elimination of tax breaks for millionaires. Van Hollen’s budget permanently extends Bush tax cuts for the middle class while generating $1 trillion in new revenue by ending tax cuts and closing loopholes that benefit the wealthiest Americans. It also includes a “Buffet Rule” to ensure millionaires do not pay lower tax rates than the middle class.

The House Republicans’ plan purports to balance the budget in 10 years through severe spending cuts, though they would have to raise taxes on the middle class in order to pay for the tax cuts for millionaires without adding to the deficit.

The Democratic budget still cuts $80 billion from government programs. As multiple studies have noted, the past 3 budget deals have been dramatically skewed towards spending cuts, to the extent that the next deal should be 90 percent comprised of new tax revenues in order to round out a balanced deficit reduction plan.

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LGBT

Congressional Democrats Again Pressure Obama To Sign Nondiscrimination Executive Order

By Zack Ford on Mar 20, 2013 at 3:50 pm

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ)

Congressional Democrats have once again pressured President Obama to issue an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Today, 110 members of the House, led by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NH) and Jared Polis (D-CO), signed a letter urging Obama not to delay the order any longer, regardless of the potential for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to pass:

OUr request begins with a simple premise. It is unacceptable that it remains legal to fire or refuse to hire someone based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. Federal law continues to allow this and discrimination based on sexual orientation is legal in 29 states and discrimination because of gender identity is legal in 34 states. Action at the federal level can put a stop to these unfair and discriminatory workplace practices in every state. [...]

Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 and subsequently amendment, prohibits federal contractors from discriminating against employees based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The executive order gave millions important workplace protections and to this day continues to stand as an important protection that is enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the Department of Labor. According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity would protect more than 16 million additional workers.

Last year, 72 Representatives sent a similar letter, as did 37 Senators last month. Despite a campaign pledge to sign such an order, Obama has avoided doing so, claiming he would prefer the legislative solution of ENDA. But even if ENDA were to pass (which it likely won’t while the House is Republican-controlled), an executive order would still be needed to protect employees in businesses with less than 15 employees. It was rumored Obama might use the State of the Union to speak out for nondiscrimination protections, but he did not.

It remains unclear what the Obama administration gains by continuing to deny these protections to the LGBT community.

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