The Department of Homeland Security said a 7-in-10 chance that foot-and-mouth disease would escape from a facility in Kansas was an "extremely low" risk. The National Research Council begged to differ.
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The Obama Administration is following through on its pledge toward a 'lasting conversation' with tribal leaders. The second White House summit needs to set in place new systems for dispensing federal services.
The Washington Post reports that despite increased federal inspections and crackdown on safety violations, nine men have died in U. S. mines since the Upper Big Branch disaster.
Twenty-nine men were killed in the Upper Branch mine in West Virginia on April 5. Since then, according to the Post, five men have been killed by heavy machinery and four by falling rock at 8 separate mines in coal country from northern West Virginia to southern Illinois.
There are over 300 open investigations by government inspectors against the Indian Health Service for violations including fraud, theft and employee misconduct according to The Argus Leader. This week's hearing by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee focused on the IHS' Aberdeen office which includes 48 medical facilities in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.
"This is a mess, and a big problem and a big bureaucracy that doesn't want to change,"Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan D-N. D. told IHS Director Yvette Roubideaux.
Adding fuel to the fire, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU announced that they have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against IHS to uncover information about allegations that pregnant women on the Cheyenne River Sioux Resesrvation in South Dakota are being pushed to take medication that induces labor."They treat us just like guinea pigs when it comes to Indian Health Services," one woman said in describing the birth of her second child according to the ACLU.
It's not rocket science to provide basic health care. But an arcane billing system is keeping a simple program for free flu shots from taking off in Rhode Island.
As the new health reform law gradually comes to change the way health care is delivered and used, the country could learn from the Indian Health Service.