From Faux News, a voice out of my nightmares. A commentator and guest claim that it was drugs that made Cho go on a rampage at Va Tech. No, not the illegal kind. Antidepressants. Warning: if you’re feeling the least bit shaky right now, pass on the video. It’s very upsetting.
I changed my mind and decided not to embed the video for that reason. You can see it here.
Yup, treatment is what makes people dangerous. Let’s lock them all up and we’ll be safer. Sure, that’s the ticket.
After over 55 years of service, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is being replaced. (It was rebuilt after it’s historic wave collapse in 1940.) Because of a shortage of public money, this time around much of the construction cost will be self-funded in the form of a $1.50 toll, collected each time it’s used. Sounds reasonable. Except there’s a problem.
Even police cars, fire engines and rescue vehicles, and ambulances could be required to pay it.
From the Seattle PI:
Commissioners have discussed exempting state Department of Transportation maintenance vehicles that service the bridge and Washington State Patrol troopers who work near it, said Reema Griffith, the commission’s executive director.
They’ve also discussed requiring that other emergency vehicles and first responders pay the toll fees, likely to be $1.50, by using windshield-mounted devices that automatically deduct toll payments from electronic accounts.
Under such a scenario, Griffith said, ambulance, fire or police crews could apply for credit to their accounts if they crossed the bridge while responding to emergency calls with their vehicles’ lights and sirens on.
The commission takes up the issue Monday as part of a formal proposal that will include toll costs. The proposal will be open to public comment for five weeks.
Griffith said commissioners are trying to make sure the tolls raise enough money to cover debt payments on the $849 million bridge.
“It’s going to be a cost for everybody,” she said. “If we don’t have enough toll revenue coming in, then some highway projects could be compromised. We certainly don’t want to go in the red.”
The prepaid fee would be tallied by a transponder box located in the vehicle which the emergency services would be required to purchase.
A better way to handle this would perhaps be to work out a payment arrangement with Gig Harbor and other cities on the far side of the bridge. Since service providers would be responding to calls from these communities, they, not the county departments, should foot the bill.
I’m emotionally burned out from the NASPER piece, so blogging has been difficult this last few days. So instead, here’s some signs of spring, late though it is. My miniature pear tree is only about 6′ tall, but bears about 2 dozen fruit every summer. The rest of the time, it’s content being beautiful in a Zen sort of way.
This huge Bing Cherry tree technically lives in my neighbor’s yard, but several large branches hang over my fence and we have a deal - what’s on my side, I get to pick. The blooms are already dying back to produce fruit, so by the first of July I should be picking dark, sweet cherries, enough for a double batch of jelly.
Think your meds are just between your doctor, your pharmacist and you? Wrong. Unbeknownst to most of us, the government has enacted a tracking database of those taking any scheduled drug. The program is called NASPER, a federalized compilation of state databases which were started under the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring grant Program used by the states.
From the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) website:
What is NASPER?
On August 11, 2005, President Bush signed into law the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005 (NASPER). The act creates a grant program for states to create prescription drug monitoring databases and enhance existing ones, similar to the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring grant program. NASPER authorizes $60 million for the program through fiscal 2010. While the Harold Rogers Grant Program is placed within the Department of Justice, the NASPER program is placed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
…The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Report Act of 2005 (NASPER), housed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), requires states to meet requirements in order to receive grant funding. NASPER requires states to collect information on Schedules II, III, and IV. Additionally, NASPER requires states to be capable of sharing information and prescription data among states.
The states are in on it, too. As of November 2006, 33 states had enacted legislation which required prescription monitoring programs: 25 of those programs are currently operating and 8 are in the start-up phase.
The 33 states with Prescription Monitoring Programs and/or enacted legislation are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Currently, the state of Washington uses their program only for disciplinary purposes, however legislation has been introduced to expand the program statewide.
They claim they’re tracking us for our own good.
Prescription monitoring programs are being used to deter and identify many types of illegal activity including prescription forgery, indiscriminate prescribing and “doctor shopping” -which is a felony in some states. Most programs provide patient specific drug information upon request of the patient’s physician or pharmacist. Some state programs proactively notify physicians when their patients are seeing multiple prescribers for the same class of drugs. This assists health care professionals in enhancing patient care by allowing them to intervene on the patient’s behalf and assist them in obtaining appropriate treatment. It has been an extremely successful program to thwart diversion in a number of states.
How big would that database be?
The system would be required to collect data from in excess of 673 million prescriptions annually from the nations 61,000 DEA registered pharmacies and respond to requests for information from more than 900,000 DEA-registered practitioners.
Who is affected by this? A whole lot more people than you might expect. Many commonly prescribed drugs are Schedule 4, meaning mandatory reporting. The major tranquilizers used to treat severe anxiety are on the list: Xanax, Valium, Klonapin, Ativan, and most other benzodiazepines. The psych drugs Librium and Halcion. Common painkillers your doctor might give you: Vicodin, Darvon, Darvocet, Tylenol 3. Prescription cough syrups containing codeine, such as Robitussin. The sleep aid Ambien. The ADD/ADHD drug Ritalin. The hormone testosterone. Ever taken one of these? The government knows about it.
I’ve taken many of these drugs and a couple of them long term, like Ativan. How long before antidepressants and anti-psychotics like my Geodon are added to the list, if they aren’t there already? Doesn’t the government have a right to know who might be unstable?
The government claims that access to the database will be limited, but they don’t have a good track record of confidentiality. Just ask all the vets whose social security numbers have reached the public.
ABC News reports that “senior federal officials” informed them that Va Tech shooter Cho’s name didn’t appear on the drug list, admitting that “this does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in computer databases, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.” They voluntarily gave that information to the press - some confidentiality, huh. Since the question involved antidepressants, how many of those are tracked without our knowledge?
How long before universities and employers begin to get access for “screening purposes” to avert another massacre?
Best of all, you don’t get to know every drug in the database. The website contains this disclaimer: This document is a general reference and not a comprehensive list.
I find this very frightening, and you should, too.
Via Have Coffee Will Write. I urge you to leave comments there, too.
I need the Grammar Patrol. Can anyone give me an easy rule on when to use affect/effect? Every time I need one of those words I look it up on Merriam-Webster, and even from the definitions I can’t figure it out. Help, please?
Helen of Windows Toward the World gave me a Thinking Blogger Award, saying, “My fourth Thinking Blogger Award goes to Terry, who presents some alternate views concerning people and places. Terry makes me think. Thanks, Terry.” In response, I’m to give out 5 of my own.
This is tough. I wish I could give them to my entire blogroll - they wouldn’t be on the list if they weren’t insightful and always prompting me to ponder. But if I have to pick just five, here goes, in no particular order.
Sherry Chandler. Her mix of poetry, politics, philosophy and environmentalism makes her one of my first reads every day. She brings passion to every subject she touches, and I learn something from every entry she posts. I’m proud to say she’s one of my blog siblings, and a dear friend.
Jeff Hess of Have Coffee Will Write. He approaches every issue with journalistic objectivity and makes me reach past my gut reaction to see the other side of the story. He always challenges my assumptions and stretches my mind, a very good thing. Read, too, for the From My Chapbook series - inspirational.
Ahistoricality. Though the blog isn’t updated as often as I’d like to see, A. consistently shares thoughtful comments with us here, bringing a much needed infusion of logic to my thinking and writing. When A speaks, I listen. A, please give me a link to the historians site you mentioned so I can read you there!
Shamash Says. Through her eyes I see a part of the world I’ll never know. Her photography captures my heart and imagination and her choice of quotations opens my mind to possibilities. Her perspective is utterly unique in my life, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to read her.
Stephen Leigh of Intersection of Fiction and Reality. He’s an acclaimed novelist and writing instructor, as well as a blog sibling from the old days of Not-A-Web-Ring on sff.net. His discussions on writing, publishing and politics are always honest and well crafted, and his generosity with his knowledge is much appreciated.
If you’d like to pass on the honors, just copy the graphic from here and give out your own awards. I’d love to read your lists.
I feel bad that I couldn’t give out twice as many. I value every reader, commenter and site I visit regularly, and I learn something from all of you. Thanks for being part of my circle.
From Reuters:
Elderly people who are depressed are more likely to become diabetic than those who are not, according to a study that suggests depression may play a role in causing the most common form of diabetes.
Writing on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers said people with a high number of symptoms of depression were about 60 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, than people not considered depressed.
Unlike some other studies examining a link between depression and diabetes, this one looked at the effects not only of single bouts of depression but also of chronic depression and depression that worsened over time. It found an increased risk for diabetes in each of those scenarios.
Researchers tracked 4,681 men and women in North Carolina, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania ages 65 and older, with an average age of 73, who did not have diabetes when the study began in 1989.
Depression is notoriously under diagnosed in the elderly, with as many as 2 million people suffering from it. Symptoms are often written of to ill health and grief reaction to loses of mobility, independence, friends and loved ones. Most could be treated and relieved of their suffering.
On theory says that a high level of the stress hormone cortisol in depressed people may be the reason. High cortisol levels may cut insulin sensitivity and raise fat deposits around the waist, leading to increased Type II Diabetes risk.
But there’s another aspect to look at here. Some psych meds cause what my shrink called Metabolic Effect, a syndrome in which blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar rise in response to the drugs. While getting off risperdal took care of most of my problems, with cholesterol and blood sugar issues going away, I still need to take a mild blood pressure pill to counteract the affects of my Geodon. So I wonder if there’s a breakdown of diabetes in treated versus untreated patients.
Either way, depression is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and tighter screening of elderly patients is vital. Not only for their physical health, but for their mental health as well.
From the Seattle PI:
8 DEADLY SINS OF E-MAIL
- The e-mail that’s unbelievably vague. “Where’s Bill?”
- The e-mail that insults you so badly, you have to get up from your desk. “From what planet do you reside?”
- E-mails that encourage cowardice. It is never OK to fire someone or break off a relationship this way.
- The e-mail that puts you in jail. (The Justice Department has plenty of examples.)
- The e-mail that won’t go away. “Thanks!” “Thank you!” “Tnx!”
- Sarcastic e-mails. They are asking to be misunderstood.
- E-mails to high-ranking people that are too casual. “Hiya!”
- Inappropriate e-mail: anything racist, sexist, pornographic, homophobic or insensitive.
Source: “Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home”
I’d also include notes containing animated gifs, custom stationary, anything with more than one fwd, and TYPING IN ALL CAPS. (Hi, Mom!)
What would you add to the list?
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