American Indian, Native Alaskan and Native Canadian women and girls from rural areas are prime targets for sex traffickers.

Recalling my grandmother's experience raising a special needs child fills me with gratitude as I walk the same path

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.

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.