Stop Mass General from needless killing of animals!

From Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

On Monday and Tuesday, live sheep are scheduled to be used and then killed in a trauma training course at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. We need your help to end this unnecessary and cruel practice.

Mass General may be one of the nation’s best hospitals, but it is woefully behind the times when it comes to teaching Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS). Across the nation, more than 90 percent of ATLS courses are taught using only human-based simulators, which Mass General currently owns.

Please call, e-mail, or write a letter to Massachusetts General Hospital president Peter L. Slavin, M.D., and politely ask him to end animal use in the institution’s ATLS program. Then forward this message to your friends who care about animals and effective medical education. Being polite is the most effective way to help these animals. Send an automatic e-mail.

Peter L. Slavin, M.D.
President
Massachusetts General Hospital
55 Fruit St.
Boston, MA 02114
Tel: 617-724-9300
E-mail: pslavin@partners.org

Mass General owns the American College of Surgeons-approved simulator known as the TraumaMan System. The hospital uses the simulator to teach ATLS surgical skills to medical students while using live sheep to teach the very same procedures to practicing physicians.

On May 14, PCRM filed a formal request with Mass General’s Subcommittee on Research Animal Care asking that it deny the use of animals in the hospital’s ATLS program.

The letter cites an ongoing survey by PCRM, which has so far received responses from 201 ATLS programs in the United States and Canada. The survey has found that 187 of those programs (more than 90 percent) exclusively use nonanimal models for instruction. The vast majority of those 187 programs exclusively use the TraumaMan System.

Learn more about the TraumaMan System. If you have any questions, please contact me at rmerkley@pcrm.org. Thanks so much for your help!

Insurance coverage for "mental health" disorders influenced by psych drug industry

Through a back door darkly: new mental health insurance requirements: costly and mandatory mental health coverage sneaks through in the Federal bailout bill.(Psychology)

Publication: USA Today (Magazine)

Publication Date: 01-JAN-09
Author: Vatz, Richard E. ; Schaler, Jeffrey A

IT HAS THE KIND of intuitive appeal that should make thoughtful people skeptical-mandatory insurance coverage for all mental illnesses by all companies that cover mental illness at all. What images come to mind? Many, perhaps most, conjure up pictures of cognitively damaged people who are at the mercy of something called "mental illness." In this fantasy, mental illness can strike without warning and leave individuals involuntarily debilitated, walking around aimlessly, spouting incomprehensible "word salad."

With its major audience a government with increasing control over its citizens' daily fives and a credulous general public mystified by the allegedly medical components of the edifice of mental health care, psychiatric self-interest groups have tried for years to force insurance companies to cover the treatment of mental illness and addiction. Treating depression as well as disturbing and sometimes simple problems in riving on the same level as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes is the essence of what has come to be known as "parity."

Now, through political legerdemain, this government-mandated coverage has become law as an undebated amendment attached to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Thus, a proposal which had failed in a variety of forms for over a decade to enforce mental health parity has become law. The parity amendment requires that mental health and substance use disorder benefits be "no more restrictive than the predominant financial requirements applied to substantially all medical and surgical benefits covered" by an insurance group health plan or coverage (only if said plan covers mental illness). Again, to the untutored ear, this has a reasonable sound to it. Logicians would say its supporting arguments sport a sort of "face validity." Yet, this legislation, unless reversed--or at least modified to apply only to organic-based mental disorders-is likely to open up a Pandora's box for the U.S. health care system.

Organic-based mental disorders are those with known physiological bases. Regardless of what many "experts" and laypersons say, there are no known brain lesions or organic causes responsible for "mental illness." If there were, these would be brain or neurological diseases, not mental diseases. These would be identified by their physical origins. Another way to understand the difference here between brain disease, for example, and mental illness is this: brain disease usually is characterized by cognitive deficit, e.g., short-term memory loss; mental illness, by false claims--self-reported imaginings, also known as hallucinations.

Addiction often is treated with religion. Alcoholics Anonymous is the best example. Courts in the U.S. increasingly are viewing AA as a religious activity. When courts order people into AA, or when states give money to addiction treatment providers utilizing AA's "12 Steps," the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment are violated. The $35,000,000 Federal project MATCH of a few years ago showed that AA is as effective as the best contemporary psychology has to offer when it comes to treatment of alcoholism. We know from past studies that AA is as effective as leaving people to their own devices. It is important to remember, particularly in light of the parity bill, that AA and other self-help groups are free. No money needs to be appropriated to them at all. In fact, they do better without Federal or state subsidy. Quietly slipping the parity requirement into the financial bailout bill surreptitiously adjudicates by legislative flat a halt-century of contentious debate over the definition of "mental illness," whether "psychiatric disorders" are medical disorders, and the nature of addiction. What it does not address are the many valid objections to the entire concept of mental health parity-objections that barely have been allowed to see the light of day and indisputably never have been resolved satisfactorily.

This analogy--that mental illness is like physical illness--is not reciprocal. People with cancer hardly are like John Hinckley, Theodore "Unabomber" Kaczynski, or Jeffrey Dahmer. Those struggling with the devastation of diabetes hardly are like those who choose to destroy themselves by shooting heroin or smoking crack. When a person with diabetes is deprived of his insulin, that individual gets sick and dies. When a crack user is deprived of cocaine, he or she gets better and lives. There are far more differences between mental and physical disease than there are similarities, but medical science increasingly is becoming political science, especially when government gets involved in mandating and defining illness, treatment, and medicine--and individuals with real diseases always will lose relatively when mental health professionals stand to gain by hiding behind their "patients."

The issue of coverage for mental illness, made increasingly salient since the 1970s, became a prominent national concern largely through the lobbying efforts of Tipper Gore, wife of former Vice Pres. Al Gore. Her political activism, revealingly, first was motivated by her situational depression following her young son's serious injury in a car accident after he darted into a street. Does anyone really believe such upset is an indication of "illness?" Does anyone believe that such a reaction is revelatory of what psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders calls a "depressive disorder."

Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz accurately predicted close to 50 years ago what we are experiencing today when he warned against the "therapeutic state"--a term he created--as the greatest threat to liberty and justice in a free society.

Through Mrs. Gore's encouragement, Pres. Bill Clinton ordered Federal parity coverage for psychiatric "illness," though mental illness and addiction never were defined adequately. In Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, he stated his policy as follows: "I want to make sure that a patient with depression is given access to care on terms no different from a patient who has diabetes." If depression is like diabetes, is diabetes like depression? The analogy, again, is not reciprocal.

Verifying mental illness

The lack of pathological verification necessary to label someone as "mentally ill" has led to some truly anomalous phenomena. According to The New York Times, Olympic swimming superstar Michael Phelps was diagnosed in early childhood as having the mental disorder Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He no longer takes drugs for the diagnosis, and famed ADHD psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell says of the disorder, "I have been treating this condition for 25 years and I know that, if you manage it right, this apparent deficit can become an asset. I think of it as a trait and not a disability." So, should such a claim mandatorily be covered by insurance? Now, according to Hallowell, this "disorder" not only is a "trail" and not a "disability," it is an "asset" as well.

Other generally ignored objections to the parity argument include those disputing the American Psychiatric Association's claims that over 50% of Americans are--or will be at some point--mentally ill. In the December 2008 Archives of General Psychiatry, there is a report that "almost half of college-aged individuals had a psychiatric disorder in the past year," and this includes heavy drinking, categorized under "alcohol use disorders." These findings were not based on any type of medical examination, but on "face-to-face interviews" conducted by nonphysicians. Moreover, these estimates, more than doubling the APA's and National Institute of Mental Health's assessment from years ago, virtually are unlimited since there is no way to confirm accurately the existence of "mental illness" or "psychiatric disorders." Mental illness and psychiatric disorders always are diagnosed on the basis of symptoms or complaints. There are no signs. Most physical illness is diagnosed on the basis of signs, discovered through objective tests.

Parity amendment supporters celebrate the new law as signaling the end of "stigma," but they fail to consider that stigmatization is a marvelous punishment reinforcer for undesirable behavior, some of which is called "mental illness." If there is no "stigma" to having mental illness, there is no disincentive for those who--consciously or unconsciously, innocently or strategically--want the label to justify their unnecessary medicating or seeking of privileges, special rights, and competitive advantages in a variety of situations ranging from jobs to education.

Substance disorders arguably are a function of behavioral choices and in no way constitute diseases to which insurance should apply. Such self-destructive behavior is best explained by mindset, personal values, and how a person copes with his or her environment. Incidence varies by cultural context, and people clearly can stop or control their addictions through an exercise of free will. Not so when it comes to bodily illness; one no more can will away cancer, heart disease, or diabetes than he or she can will their onset independently of smoking or eating badly.

Schizophrenia is used to typify "mental illness" when it, in fact, constitutes no more than 1.5% of those labeled "mentally ill." Such citing of unrepresentative problems as the prototype of mental illness--including some examples of schizophrenics who have authentic brain disease--is used to make people falsely envision enfeebled, helpless, sympathy-inducing sick people as poster children for mental illness. A more prototypical mental illness, "adjustment disorder," is a name given by psychiatrists to people who have problems in living--hardly worthy of health insurance and an inducement against confronting one's problems and choices. The same could be said for "impulse-control disorders" such as gambling too much (called "pathological gambling"), Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder, and other supposed mental disorders whose incidence rises and falls with their marketability at any given time.

Most major media outlets generally ignore the foregoing arguments in coverage of the passage of parity for mental disorders. Major articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times covering the passage of parity in 2008, for instance, often include testimony only from supporters of the amendment. Recall that it took but a single boy to expose the Emperor's "new clothes."

Passing a measure that is objectionable in so many ways is bad enough. Even worse is the tact that such a contentious, scientifically questionable, and potentially expensive piece of legislation--especially for purchasers of health insurance--was passed through the back door.
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The dangers of parity - insurance coverage for so-called "mental health" disorders, are being disguised through the back door under the influence of the psych drug industry, in particular. The result of such coverage creates a mandate for drugging anyone under a diagnosis of depression, post dramatic stress disorder, bigomania, or a multitude of other stigmatizing labels - a disguise for control. Too often, the result is used to control/manipulate nursing home patients.

Please tell your legislator not to pass this option, allowing mandatory (forced) treatment.

The dark history of modern medicine

	The dark history of modern medicine: U.S. surgeons routinely operated on babies without anesthesia

A warning to readers: this is a gruesome story. Do not read this if you are squeamish. It's a hard-to-believe (but true) account of the horrors of conventional medicine and its barbaric surgical procedures, many of which are still practiced today.

We begin by examining the astonishing practice of prestigious U.S. surgeons operating on babies with no anesthesia, subjecting them to the intense pain and trauma of having their skin sliced open with scalpels, their internal organs poked and prodded, and their surgical wounds closed up with staples and stitches... all with full awareness of each terrifying moment of excruciating pain.

To stop the babies from screaming in terror, surgeons gave them heavy doses of muscle relaxants, paralyzing them for the duration of the procedure. And so these babies could only watch in terrified amazement, prisoners in their own tiny bodies, unable to move a muscle or make a sound, as strange men wearing masks and wielding sharp instruments went to work on their flesh.

If it sounds like a "mad doctor" horror film, think again: This was a common practice by U.S. surgeons right up to the 1980's. Many adults living today were once subjected to the terror of full-consciousness surgical procedures as babies or infants, performed by the brightest and most authoritative surgeons of the day -- the same kind of arrogant surgeons who now tell us that bariatric surgery is a treatment for obesity, or that surgically removing muscles of the skull is a cure for migraines.

Surgery has a dark and dreadful history in the Western world, and the practice of operating on babies without anesthesia is just one footnote in a saga too terrifying to accurately describe. Its real history is hardly ever talked about today, just as doctors don't readily admit their profession once hawked cigarettes on television, proudly proclaiming Camels were, "Recommended by more doctors than any other cigarette!"

But the practice was real, and it was "standard operating procedure" at places like Oxford University and Boston Children's Hospital. It makes us all wonder, though... How could surgeons be so cruel as to operate on babies without anesthesia?

The bizarre beliefs of surgeons
The answer, as strange as it now seems, is that they actually believed babies couldn't feel pain. It's absurd, yes, but the mindset continues today with medical experiments on animals, where researchers tell themselves these animals don't feel pain either.

Much of conventional medicine has always been based on a lie, or a series of lies. Babies feel no pain. Lab rats feel no pain. Monkeys are not conscious beings. Health knowledge is gained by dissecting living beings and identifying their parts. Take your pick.

It was once common knowledge in the field of medicine that female reproductive organs made women crazy. Hysterectomies, which are still routinely performed today for no medically justifiable reason, derive their very name from the intention of the surgery: Hyster = hysteria, ectomy = to remove. Thus, hysterectomies were ordered and performed on the simple basis of removing hysterical behavior in women.

The procedure, of course, was almost always performed by men. It was the women, you see, who were all insane, they claimed. The men were merely scientists practicing what they called, "evidence-based medicine" -- a term you still hear thrown around today by doctors and surgeons defending modern medical scams.

The madness of surgery continues into modern times
The madness of conventional medicine and its surgical procedures, sadly, is not yet a closed chapter in the history books. We're still living it, and millions of Americans each year are being subjected to surgical procedures that can only be described as utterly mad, if not downright profitable for the masked men performing them: Hysterectomies, gastric bypass surgery, heart bypass surgery, carpal tunnel surgery, the surgical removal of wisdom teeth and many more.

None of these have any medical justification except in a few extreme cases. Nearly all are conducted for the sole purpose of generating business for surgeons who suffer serious delusions about the efficacy of these procedures, just as the surgeons of three decades ago once believed babies could feel no pain.

There's not a conventional dentist who has looked in my mouth, for example, who didn't immediately urge me to undergo oral surgery to remove my wisdom teeth. I'm 36 years old. My teeth are fine. My jaw is fine. But my dentists are mad. Most patients would automatically say yes to such an authoritative suggestion, though. They'd agree on the spot: "Yes, I'll let you cut open my jaw and remove my teeth just because you say so!"

Two decades ago it was tonsils. Half the children I grew up with, it seemed, had their tonsils surgically removed. That particular procedure was a popular medical fad. Countless parents were hoodwinked into letting little Johnny go under the knife. But after hundreds of thousands of such procedures were performed, it eventually became obvious that removing the tonsils did nothing beneficial other than pad the pockets and egos of doctors. Today, it is rarely done at all. Tonsils get infected. It doesn't mean you should slice them out.

Besides, we have new surgical fads now like bariatric surgery -- a lobotomy of the stomach -- where surgeons maim patients for life and then send a bill to the ones who don't die on the operating table. Actually, they get billed, too. Surgery ain't free, you know, even if you're dead.

Nearly five percent of such patients are, in fact, dead in the first year following the bariatric surgery, studies now show. And many more who survive the ordeal find that they overproduce insulin after ingesting food -- a condition known as hyperinsulinemia. It's sometimes also called "islet cell hyperfunction," and it means the pancreas is producing too much insulin in response to food intake. You know what the surgeon's modern solution to this problem is?

They open up the patient and slice off part of the pancreas! Amazing, huh? That way, it won't produce so much insulin. It makes you wonder what the surgical cure for headaches might be.

With similar insanity, the modern treatment for an overactive thyroid is to fry it with radiation so powerful that people who undergo the procedure are now setting off nuclear materials detection scans at airports. Patients who receive the radioactive iodine injections used in the procedure are advised -- get this -- to avoid hanging around their pets because they're so radioactive, they might give the family dog cancer!

I swear, I'm not making this up.

Surgical treatments for mental health
If you think it's all a bit mad, you're right. But you don't know the half of it. Mental health, you see, has also been treated by barbaric surgical procedures. Turn the clock back on conventional medicine to the early 1900's when a psychiatrist named Henry Cotton was the medical director at the New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton.

Dr. Cotton cooked up the theory that mental illness was the result of bacterial infections and pus found throughout the body. With the full support of the medical authorities of the day, he and his staff proceeded to surgically remove practically every organ and structure in the patient's body in an effort to cure them of their "illness."

He would often start with the teeth, pulling them out one by one. If that didn't "cure" the patient, he would cut out their tonsils and sinuses. When that didn't cure them either, he'd move on to other organs: gall bladders, stomachs, spleens, ovaries, testicles and even their colons. Patients who weren't healed by this "treatment" were subjected to even more organ removals, to the point where some patients were maimed beyond recognition and were barely alive at all.

It wasn't all voluntary, either. Some patients were literally dragged kicking and screaming into the procedures, then violently strapped onto surgical tables so that the "treatment" could begin. Others actually paid big bucks for the treatment, as you'll see below.

Dr. Cotton publicly announced a cure rate of 85 percent. That number, he later admitted, included those who died from the treatment, because they were "no longer suffering" from the illness. (Sounds a lot like today's chemotherapy treatments for cancer, doesn't it?) Conventional medicine has a long history of fudging the numbers, it seems. You can announce whatever success rate you want if you redefine success. (Modern medicine has done that quite effectively with drug trials.) The actual death rate from Dr. Cotton's treatments, by the way, was 30 percent of all patients.

A pioneer of conventional medicine
Not surprisingly, conventional medicine gleefully embraced Cotton's work, heaping unprecedented praise upon his "genius" discoveries about the true cause of mental illness. He was honored at medical institutions across the U.S. and Europe, and invited to speak to elite groups of leading doctors and surgeons. He was widely considered one of the pioneers in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders. (Today, by the way, the theory of mental disorders has shifted from "pus in the organs" to "chemical imbalances in the brain" which are treated by toxic synthetic chemicals known as prescription drugs. Different era, different terminology. Same con.)

As demand for his treatments skyrocketed, in part due to a series of glowing news reports published in the New York Times, Cotton saw visions of dollar signs like any good psychiatrist. He opened a private clinic for treating mental illness, where he raked in enormous sums for removing the teeth and organs of the super rich. Rich people, even in 1922, were just as gullible as rich people today when it comes to trading their wealth for medical procedures based on junk science.

Despite the astonishing death rate, patients couldn't get enough of Cotton's cutting-edge treatments, and they were willing to fork over top dollar to subject themselves to various organ lobotomies in the hopes of curing mental illness that was most likely caused by simple nutritional deficiencies. (It's much like today, where cancer patients are tripping over each other to sign up for the latest, greatest, over-hyped anti-cancer drug, no matter what the cost, when most cancers are easily treated with low-cost herbs and nutritional therapies.)

When Dr. Cotton fell ill himself, he had his own teeth surgically removed and promptly returned to work, performing the same procedure on others. He did not, however, remove his own testicles. (Apparently, he didn't have the balls.)

A champion of conventional medicine
But this is no laughing matter. What's important to note about Dr. Henry Cotton was not the barbaric nature of his surgical treatments, nor the madness of his ideas, but rather the stunning fact that he was widely considered a pioneer by the medical authorities of his time. Cotton, for example, was considered a top student at the John Hopkins School of Medicine, and the psychiatric industry openly accepted Dr. Cotton's insane methods. Even to this day, the American Journal of Psychiatry offers this glowing whitewash of Dr. Cotton on its web page about the history of the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital: "In 1907 Dr. Henry A. Cotton became the medical director, and a new era in the treatment of mental diseases began. Among other improvements, Dr. Cotton is credited with abolishing all forms of mechanical restraints and implementing daily staff meetings to discuss patient care."

Mysteriously, there is no mention in the journal of Dr. Cotton's barbaric methods of treatment other than calling them, "...a new era in the treatment of mental diseases." The American Journal of Psychiatry focuses instead on Dr. Cotton's exciting invention of "daily staff meetings." Wow. That's amazing stuff. Meetings? Really?

Prestigious medical institutions around the world were suckered in, too. They lined up to invite Dr. Cotton to speak at their schools. Even the New York Times wrote glowing accounts of Dr. Cotton's "scientific discoveries."

All the brightest doctors in the world, it seems, couldn't tell the difference between treatment and torture.

Modern surgery is still half mad
And many still can't today. Because the history of surgery in conventional medicine continues right up to this day, where countless barbaric procedures are still being formed, all in the name of "treating" patients. Babies are now receiving anesthesia when operated on, thankfully, but 50,000 Americans this year will have their digestive tracts partially ripped out in a procedure marketed to them by surgeons hawking the latest weight loss "cure" who just happen to avoid mentioning all the sexy side effects of the procedure (like having to drink all your food through a straw for the rest of your life, or puking every time you swallow any chunk of food larger than a tater tot).

The fad procedures always change, you see, but the cons don't. Today, just as a hundred years ago, the public and the press remain hoodwinked by the false authority and high-IQ language of surgeons pushing the latest surgical fads... all based on the latest and greatest "scientific knowledge" of the day (which will be considered nonsense in about twenty years).

But it doesn't matter how much technical knowledge they learn, nor the sophistication of their high-tech instruments, nor whether they can perform remote surgery over the internet with a robot-controlled arm. It sounds cool, but it's really just stupid. Cutting into the human body is plainly traumatic and harmful by its very nature, and it should only be used as a last resort when other treatments are not available.

Just to clarify, we do need great surgeons to save the lives of those suffering from trauma, accidents or physical birth defects. Some people genuinely benefit from cosmetic surgery, and I'm not just talking about silicone implants. Some dental patients really do benefit from oral surgery when things have deteriorated too far. There are many other examples where surgery has a legitimate purpose.

We need these technicians in society for many things, but not for half the things they impose upon us. Much of the surgery being done today is a sham, and not coincidentally, it just happens to be a sham that keeps surgeons well paid, just like it has for over a hundred years.

Dr. Cotton would have been proud to see modern medicine carrying on his trademark insanity today. I can see him smiling right now, with no teeth.

Tonight on Channel 5 - Report on injustice of 209a

Don't miss this special report tonight at 11 PM on Boston's Channel 5 WCVB-TV Boston

Butterfly Migration

Monarch Butterfly with splints on wings.

Associated Press November 21, 2008 at 4:23 AM EST

LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. — A southern Adirondack couple used their skill at handicrafts, their homemade honey and their gumption to mend a monarch butterfly's wing, nurse it back to health and find it a ride to a warmer climate.

Jeannette Brandt spied the butterfly about three weeks ago when, out for a bike ride in rural Hadley, N.Y., about 70 kilometres north of Albany, she pulled over on the shoulder to take off her coat. Noticing the butterfly's broken wing, she poured out her water bottle and placed the butterfly inside it.

At home, she and her long-time partner, Mike Parwana, began nursing the butterfly, feeding it rotting pears and honey mixed with water. The pears came from a tree on their property. The honey came from the bees they keep.As the butterfly strengthened, they wondered whether they could fix its wing. They turned to the Internet, searching under "fixing a broken butterfly wing," and found a video posted by the Live Monarch Foundation, a non-profit group from Boca Raton, Fla.

The video, more than nine minutes long, demonstrates, on a live butterfly, how to mend a torn or broken wing. They had to hold the butterfly still while they brushed contact cement on its brilliant orange and black wing, then applied shreds of cardboard as a splint.

"It was still weak. It was another week or so before it would fly," Mr. Parwana said.

They worried that the patch was too heavy, but as the butterfly fattened up on pear and honey, it started flapping around their house. Then, they worried the cat would get it. And they wondered what to do with their healthy monarch, since it was, by then, too cold to put it outside.

They called Elizabeth Morgan, better known as Bunny, the local butterfly lady, who suggested they find someone to carry it south. And that is how Ms. Brandt and Mr. Parwana came to be standing together on Sunday in Scotty's truck-stop restaurant in nearby Wilton, holding a shoebox, and calling out to ask whether anyone was heading south.

Mr. Parwana laughed. "And all these truckers looked down at their shoes," he said. "If you ever want to feel strange, walk into Scotty's and just put it out there that you want them to take a box south." The atmosphere lightened when they explained the cargo was a butterfly. A trucker from Alabama, on his way to Florida, raised his hand.

"He was very nice about it," Mr. Parwana said. "We sat down to have breakfast after we gave him the box. He came back 15 minutes later. He said, 'You want me to call you up after I let it out?' " "On Tuesday, they got the call. The butterfly was loose in Florida with its mended wing, free to join the tens of millions of other monarchs making their winter migration to the mountains of central Mexico.

State reopens review in toddler's death

Children's Hospital accused of holding records

By Liz Kowalczyk Globe Staff / November 14, 2008
The state has reopened an investigation of two prominent doctors at Children's Hospital Boston after learning the hospital may not have provided complete information about the care they gave a toddler who apparently suffered brain damage during his hospital stay.. .more>

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Americans Elect First African-American President

For the first time in many, many years, I am proud of my country.