There’s a new rule that’s been promulgated by the White House that lets health care professionals opt out of abortions, sterilizations, and anything else that they can stretch the rule to cover, like Plan B.

This would be a very good time to go up to the Planned Parenthood website, which has a form letter you can modify to send up to Health and Human Services to tell them what you think of this assault on women’s rights to safe and effective healthcare in the 30 days before the rule goes into effect.

Google Health has launched, but it is not HIPAA-compliant. This is not encouraging.

However, Google may only use health information you provide as permitted by the Google Health Privacy Policy, your Sharing Authorization, and applicable law. Google is not a “covered entity” under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the regulations promulgated thereunder (“HIPAA”). As a result, HIPAA does not apply to the transmission of health information by Google to any third party.

It may be a growing problem, but I find it hard to take it seriously when I read material like the following.

The Center for Internet Addiction Recovery is a Web-based treatment facility designed specifically for help with Internet addiction. E-counseling, self-help books and tapes and online support groups are available through this and other locations. Individuals may share messages with other members of a group in an online chat-room setting.

Edit: This doctor has issues with the “disorder”, too.

Worse, the author doesn’t even pretend to take an objective point of view in the editorial, and suggests the research clearly shows this thing exists. But the research in this area is all over the map: the self-selecting surveys done show exactly what we expect to find — people complaining of an issue that they said was an issue in the first place. It’s funny, but if you ask 100 Boston Red Sox whether they like the Red Sox or not, I bet you I could predict what their response will be. That’s the quality of much of the research into “Internet addiction disorder.”

This is an election year, which makes the chance of HR 5449 actually passing slightly greater than at other times, but it still has a long way to go before it gets to a vote.

The essential elements of this necessary legislation are: (1) No Discrimination due to pre-existing conditions, (2) Open Disclosure of all prices, and (3) Every Citizen is allowed to Pay the Lowest Price available. These ideas must be included in any successful comprehensive health care reform legislation.

At this very early step in the process, I am pleased to have the encouragement and support of many of my freshman colleagues, AFSCME and Families USA. I am looking forward to presenting this bill and these ideas in a Congressional hearing this spring.

…and we’re not ready for it.

We can’t rely on anyone else to take care of us when it comes: even if we had the best politicians in the world in charge, it would still need to be handled locally. Start buying supplies now, so that when it hits, you don’t have to leave the house for two weeks. Don’t get stuff that needs water to prepare — you’ll need that for drinking.

There’s a good rundown over on Daily Kos, with lots of links to official and less-official sites. Be ready. I want you all to be here when we come out the other side.

I’m doing some more research into St. Baldrick’s while I wait for someone to say “Yes, I’ll sponsor you.” The BBB’s Give.org site has a recent report on the Foundation: they met 19 out of 20 Standards for Charity Accountability: the one they missed was the Detailed Functional Breakdown of Expenses. Their response was that their auditors had reviewed their expenses and deemed them appropriate: in future years, they will submit the requested breakdown. 88% of the money given went to childhood leukemia programs, primarily the Children’s Oncology Group.

The Washington Post reports that a major study of ADHD in girls has finally been completed by U Cal Berkeley. Since Erin was diagnosed last year, I have a particular interest in this report.

Dissent@DailyKos is writing a series of articles on New York State’s handling of schoolkids with ADHD, Tourette’s, etc. For example, one principal had outright refused to allow the teacher and staff to get training on how to help “Joey” deal with his OCD, TS, and ADHD. After they switched schools, it took a year with a full-time aide to get him to feel safe, so that they could start helping him improve.

Another student, “Patti”, had to be removed from her school – again, to protect her from the principal.

A paragraph that caught my attention because of Erin’s and my attention-deficit issues bears repeating.

There is, for example, a tremendous literature on ADHD in school settings and classroom environment factors and individual strategies that make a difference. Yet when I go into the schools, most teachers have never been given the information about simple things like what kind of seating arrangement works best for kids with ADHD if you’re teaching new material. Or they’ve never been told or shown how to effectively use color to organize and enhance attention.

We need to make sure our schools are taking care of our kids properly. Be aware.

Remember Twinkie and Thimbelle, who had a run-in with a complete quack a while back?

Well, they found a competent doctor this time. He made an immediate diagnosis of fibromyalgia, and put her on a couple of meds.

Twinkie has been almost pain-free for over a week. God willing, it will only get better from here.

Incompetent doctors and 12-year-old girls in pain should not mix.

Thimbelle, Twinkie, I wish I could do something more useful than post. I’m sorry.