Nov. 16, 2013

The baby in Arkansas seems healthy at birth. Warm, fuzzy skin. A normal weight. But Aiden Cooper can't keep down formula.

Don't worry, he's fine, doctors assure his mother as they leave the hospital. You're just a first-time mom.

Aiden goes home and sleeps in a bassinet beside his mother's bed. Soon his stomach becomes swollen, bulging with veins. He breaks out in a rash. He is limp, pale, won't eat.

In North Carolina, a baby is born with chubby cheeks and the same button-nose as his big brother. At 11 days old, Garrett Saine turns gray, stops breathing, then turns blue.

Blood pours from the nose and mouth of a newborn boy in Wisconsin. A baby girl in Indiana has seizures, then quits breathing.

In each instance, doctors frantically try to figure out why the baby is so sick. Routine blood samples taken shortly after birth have the answers. But the samples haven't been tested.

They should have been sent to a lab within 24 hours to be screened for disorders that can often be treated if caught early. But they weren't. Instead, samples sit at hospitals for a few days. A week. Some samples are lost.

Nearly every baby born in the United States has blood collected within a day or two of birth to be screened for dozens of genetic disorders. The entire premise of newborn screening is to detect disorders quickly so babies can be treated early, averting death and preventing or limiting brain damage, disability and a lifetime of costly medical care.

Yet one of newborn screening's most important metrics — speed — is ignored for tens of thousands of babies' tests each year, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis of nearly 3 million screening tests shows.

In Arkansas, it took 3½ weeks for Aiden's blood sample to be tested. Infection raged through his tiny body as he lay in neonatal intensive care in Little Rock.

https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/issues/alert/?alertid=62994101&type=ST

ACLU of Pennsylvania

Keep religion out of Pennsylvania's public schools

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is considering a bill to mandate all public schools to display “In God We Trust” somewhere on school property. Religious proselytizing has no place in Pennsylvania’s public schools.

A mandate of the type in HB 1728 fails to recognize that 21st century America is a diverse country with people of many faiths and no faith. It is not the place of the government to preach to our children. That job belongs to parents and communities of faith.

House Bill 1728 is also counter to a foundational principle of American jurisprudence. There is a wall of separation between the state and the church.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20131114_Pa__bill_would_let_bars_host_gambling.html

Pa. bill would let bars host gambling

HARRISBURG - The Pennsylvania House gave approval yesterday to a bill that could allow thousands of bars to profit from gambling contests called small games of chance while flushing some of the profits into the state's cash-strapped coffers.

The Republican-controlled House voted 102-96, with Democrats largely opposed, to send the bill to the Senate, where final approval is expected next week. Gov. Corbett also has signed on to the concept, which would represent Pennsylvania's largest expansion of gambling since 2010, when table games were legalized in slot-machine casinos.

Under the bill, about 4,500 bars and taverns could seek licenses to conduct pull-tab games, daily drawings and tavern raffles. Individual prize limits would be $2,000 for a single game and $35,000 over seven days, while raffles would be limited to one a month. The state's budget analysts expect - based on the experience in Indiana - that about 2,000 bar owners will get licenses.

The bill passed over objections to the expansion of gambling, the lack of time to review amendments inserted Tuesday night and the competition it would create for veterans' organizations that raise funds through gambling and programs for the elderly that are traditionally underwritten by the Pennsylvania Lottery.

Three investigations since have determined that Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist, died from blood poisoning one week after admission for a miscarriage. Doctors denied her pleas for an abortion, even though her uterus had ruptured, because the 17-week-old fetus still had a heartbeat.

“When the gunman realizes that nobody else is armed, he will lay down his weapons and turn himself in…. that’s just human nature.”

“The Senators feel the best course of action is to remove all weapons from law enforcement and private citizens so no one else gets hurt,” said a Senate communications intern. “When the gunman realizes that nobody else is armed, he will lay down his weapons and turn himself in…. that’s just human nature.”