Donald Trump is leading the GOP field in polls of Republican voters. This fact has some grabbing the popcorn, others tearing out their hair, and still others shaking their heads at the state of U.S. politics today. But if you’re among the one in four adults in the US with a mental health condition, if you have an interest in children’s health, or if you love an autistic person, then you might view Trump as more troubling than bemusing or amusing.

First, there’s his willingness to apply mental illness as an epithet. Using Twitter, his favorite online tool, he has called into question Obama’s mental health, calling the president’s decision not to block flights from West Africa during the 2014 Ebola scare “psycho.” He doubled down on those comments later, stating in an interview that “there’s something wrong” with Obama, implying that the POTUS just isn’t quite right in head because his policies don’t align with The Donald’s. Of course, that scare ended without realization of the fears that motivated Trump’s outburst.

Trump also appears to believe that mental illness, rather than guns or other deadly weapons, kills people, saying about the Louisiana movie theater killings:

And then there’s his belief about autism. Eight years ago, Trump was evidently convinced that vaccines cause autism—or at least, vaccines as administered according to the recommended schedule. He decided in 2007, he said at the time, to have his son administered “one shot at a time” in what he described as “a very slow process.” He also said that his “theory is the shots” are responsible for autism.

Trump seemed to have been under the impression that a child gets a dozen or more vaccines at once, perhaps from a quart-sized syringe with a pump on it, given his comments at a 2007 press conference...

Read the full story at Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2015/08/05/presidential-candidate-donald-trump-on-autism-vaccines-and-mental-health/

After a security guard at Harrod’s stopped Shelly Wall and her family from entering the store with a wheelchair that her son Noah, who has spina bifida, uses, she tells Yahoo Parenting they fled the department store “crying.” (Noah and his sister Steph are shown here. Photo: Facebook/Shellybobbins).

To Shelly Wall, her son Noah’s wheelchair is a godsend, giving the partially paralyzed 3-year-old with spina bifida mobility. But to a security guard at Harrod’s, the small blue ZipZac wheelchair just looked like a play car. So the guard told the Wall family, visiting the famed London department store on June 22, that they would have to leave the “toy,” as she says the man called it, in the luggage department. 

Initially, she was diagnosed with appendicitis. Eventually, that diagnosis changed. It turned out she was afflicted with fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, an extremely rare cancer that only affects 200 people a year in the entire world.

Doctors operated, and told Bronte that she would be fine. That didn't put her mind at ease. She researched her disease online, and found that it had a high rate of recurrence. She brought this up to her doctors at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, who dismissed it. They told her to "stop Googling" her symptoms. In one case, she was denied treatment at a hospital, even though she was there on her general practitioner's recommendation...

Access the full story at someecards.

In audio published this week by the Nevada State Democratic Party, Hardy can be heard speaking to attendees at the Libertarian Political Expo in Las Vegas.

“I have three children,” Hardy explains. “One of them is summa cum laude and two were magna cum laude. The other one, he didn’t need an education. He works for Raytheon, smarter than all the rest. He works hard, he builds things that are genius. Some people have that ability.”

“But they all work hard. They are raising their own families,” he continued. “They will not be a drain on society, the best they can. Hopefully they will never have some disability that causes them to have to utilize that.”...

Read the full article and access the audio at Raw Story.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/nevada-gop-congressman-my-kids-will-not-be-a-drain-on-society-like-disabled-children/

Such revelations, along with the recent increase in antibiotic-resistant bugs and the mounting cost of health care, have mobilized the medical community to implement processes designed to decrease infections. These include using clippers rather than a razor to shave surgical sites and administering antibiotics before surgery but stopping them soon after to prevent drug resistance.

For all of modern medicine's advances, the best way to minimize infection risk is low-tech: Make sure anyone who touches you washes his or her hands. Tubes and catheters are also a source of bugs, and patients should ask daily if they are necessary.

3. "Good luck finding the person in charge."

Helen Haskell repeatedly told nurses something didn't seem right with her son Lewis, who was recovering from surgery to repair a defect in his chest wall. For nearly two days she kept asking for a veteran -- or "attending" -- doctor when a first-year resident's assessment seemed off. But Haskell couldn't convince the right people that her son was deteriorating.

"It was like an alternate reality," she says. "I had no idea where to go." Thirty hours after her son first complained of intense pain, the South Carolina teen died of a perforated ulcer.

In a sea of blue scrubs, getting the attention of the right person can be difficult. Who's in charge? Nurses don't report to doctors but rather to a nurse supervisor. And your personal doctor has little say over radiology or the labs running your tests, which are managed by the hospital. Some facilities employ "hospitalists" -- doctors who act as a point person to conduct the flow of information. Most hospitals now have rapid-response teams -- specialized personnel who can rush to the bedside to assess a declining patient. Haskell urges patients to know the hospital hierarchy, read name tags, get the attending physician's phone number and know how to reach the rapid-response team. If all else fails, demand a nurse supervisor -- likely the highest-ranking person who is accessible quickly...

Read the full article at Money.MSN

http://money.msn.com/health-and-life-insurance/10-things-your-hospital-will-not-tell-you.aspx?page=0

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) repeatedly made false claims about the numbers of people living on disability benefits, the official statistics watchdog has found.

Ministers at the DWP repeatedly claimed that the majority of people on disability living allowance (DLA) were given benefits for life without any supporting medical evidence.

According to press releases sent out by the department: "more than 50% of decisions on entitlement are made on the basis of the claim form alone, without any additional corroborating medical evidence."

However, the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) found that the real percentage of claims passed without supporting medical evidence was just 10%.

The DWP also claimed that "under the current system of DLA, 71% of claimants get indefinite awards without systematic reassessments."

However the UKSA found that in the last two years of the DLA, just 23% and 24% of claimants were given indefinite awards.

The DWP accept that their claims were "ambiguous" and "had not been rechecked by the Department's analysts as is the usual practice."

The findings, uncovered by Channel Four News and seen in full by Politics.co.uk, followed a complaint by the charity Parkinson's UK.

"The Department of Work and Pensions has a long track record of misusing statistics when it comes to the benefits system, and it’s clear this was a tactic to vindicate further welfare cuts," Parkinson's UK policy advisor Donna O'Brien said.

"People with Parkinson's who claimed DLA have told us supporting medical evidence was crucial due to a woeful knowledge of the condition amongst assessors, and it is absurd that the Government was trying to imply that anyone going through the system had an easy ride."

Read the full article at Politics 

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2014/05/16/iain-duncan-smith-used-false-statistics-to-justify-disabilit

Jayne Lutwyche, – is suing the BBC for disability discrimination. The 29 year old was a BBC producer for the religion and ethics department in 2012,the Daily Mail reports.

Miss Lutwyche has bipolar disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, dyslexia and dyspraxia and insists that she told bosses about her disabilities before she started her job role. She was sacked 8 months later with bosses citing, ‘behavioural issues.’

At the Tribunal held this week Miss Lutwyche claims she was completely open about her disabilities when she was given a job at the corporation’s Salford Quays site.

Miss Lutwyche told the hearing:

The hearing was told problems came to a head during a meeting to discuss the 2012 Rethink Festival.

During the tribunal Miss Lutwyche admitted she can be ‘blunt‘ due to her disabilities and became confrontational during the meeting.

The tribunal continues.

The original article by Richard Spillettin the Mail Online can be read here

Read the full article at Autism Daily Newscast 

http://www.autismdailynewscast.com/bbc-producer-who-has-aspergers-syndrome-sacked-because-of-behavioural-issues/11278/snapshot/

BY SY MUKHERJEE ON FEBRUARY 18, 2014

On Tuesday, the Arkansas House of Representatives voted not to fund a continuation of the state’s alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s optional Medicaid expansion, effectively stripping as many as 96,000 of the state’s poorest residents of their current health coverage. The state Senate is expected to take up the measure on Wednesday and the House will likely re-visit the issue later this week, when supporters expect it to gain final passage.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D) worked out a compromise with the Republican-controlled legislature last year to pass an alternative to Medicaid expansion that uses federal money to help people earning up to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) buy private insurance through the state’s Obamacare marketplace. Nearly 100,000 people have signed up for the popular program so far, and about a quarter million are eligible for coverage, according to official estimates.

Read the full article at Think Progress

> Personal Independence Payments: a failing system is trapping disabled people without benefits

Willy hated dirty things. Dusty cans of Coke in small shops, stained tables at noodle diners: they reminded him of the small-town poverty of Anhui, his home province, where he’d started work at 13 and earned his way to university before moving to Beijing. Willy would refuse to eat in a restaurant if he found a mark on a glass.

At 23, he was trying hard to shake off country habits, like his accent. But some stuck like burrs until others dislodged them. ‘Mia!’ he said. ‘You know, when I first saw her, I thought she was a monster. I was scared of her. I didn’t want to go near her because I thought she would curse me.’ His face flushed with embarrassment, then broke into a smile: ‘But now I think she is the most beautiful of all the girls.’

Willy and I had worked together at a summer programme in Beijing in 2004, teaching the winners of a Henanese English competition, including Mia. They were sweet but conventional provincial teenagers, excited to be in the capital. But Mia, though already 20, still lived in the Luoyang Children’s Home, where she had been raised since being abandoned shortly after birth by her parents. Born with scoliosis, she stood around 4ft 6in, her back crooked and walking with the aid of crutches. It was common practice to call nameless girls Dang (‘party’) and boys Guo (‘state’), and so her name was Dang Miaomiao, ‘little darling of the party’.

Read the full article at AEON

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