According to the Union of Concerned Scientists recent newsletter, the antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that has been an increasing problem in hospitals around the world is now infecting apparently healthy schoolkids outside of hospitals. This is a major development. Up until now anti-biotic resistance was only occasionally a problem outside of hospitals (so-called community-acquired" cases). This may be changing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, MRSA was responsible for almost 19,000 US deaths in 2005.

Another part of this development is also important. Evidence from Europe indicate that the community-acquired cases of MRSA are often associated with livestock operations. This is yet further evidence that the idiotic practice of pouring massive amounts of antibiotics into the feed of healthy animals is contributing to the public health risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria that treatens our children and people with a compromised immune system.

We only have a couple of weeks left in this legislative session and rather than attempting to impress voters with a long record of accomplishment, the strategy of the Senate leadership seems to be to avoid doing much of anything. That said, it is an Albany tradition to always seem to save most of the legislative work – for better or for worse – for the last few days, so I haven't completely given up hope that we can still get some important legislation passed.

Before the session began, I outlined a number of key priorities – issues that I hoped the pressure of a hotly contested election season might prompt action on – one of which was the Healthy Teens Act (S1342). This year the bill passed the Assembly on March 17 by a vote of 130 to 14, and passed the Senate Health Committee May 20 by a vote of 13-4. This is the farthest the Healthy Teens Act has ever come in the legislative process.

My State Senator has been pushing for this one for some time. Needless to say, the Republicans of the State Senate are the problem when it comes to funding comprehensive sex ed programs in New York State. You know Republicans...they believe in the failed abstinence only program.

From NARAL via email:

New studies show that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted infection (STI). In New York, 40,000 teens will become pregnant this year.

Our young New Yorkers deserve better.

New York currently has no designated funding for comprehensive sex education in our schools, although New York’s rates of unintended teen pregnancy and STIs are among the highest in the country. We need to give our teens age-appropriate and accurate sex-ed so that they can make healthy decisions for themselves.

The Healthy Teens Act (S.1342) can make this happen.

If this bill is passed, school districts, BOCES, school-based health centers and community-based organizations would be able to apply for grants to create and implement programs that will give New York students real sex ed.

An ongoing effort of mine is to fight the misuse of antibiotics. Misuse of antibiotics has been an increasing health hazard for people, leading to many strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria that infect, and sometimes kill, people, particularly children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. Last time I wrote about this I was able to report a victory in the fight to keep antibiotics effective. Today I want to introduce the latest fight.

First, for those who want more background, the Union of Concerned Scientists has an excellent rundown. An excerpt from their site:

3rd Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora: Mental Health

Saturday, February, 9, 2008
9:00Am to 6:00PM
NYU Medical Center
550 First Avenue
New York, NY 10016

To Register: http://www.med.nyu.edu/ichr/chad/events/events.html

Conference Fee: $50 General, $20 Students

Several hundred activists gathered at Columbus Circle Thursday night to start the battle to over-ride the veto by President Bush of the expanded State-Children's Health Insurance Program. The rally, one of 250 nationwide, was organized by Moveon.org-Political Action with significant help from SEIU Local 1199 and and Unite-Here. (You can see some photos of the rally here .)

NYS Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried told the crowd about how newly insured children he had met had averted life threatening medical problems because of the availability of health care. 1199 Organizer Andy King set the crowd chanting for health care and cheering his promise that the union would work with us until the veto is overturned.

George W. Bush vetoed the State Child Health Insurance Program at 10 AM Wednesday. The Reuters story (via the NY Times) is here and the fuller AP account is here

Moveon.org Political Action will take action with hundreds of rallies across the United States urging a veto over-ride. We will leaflet and ask the 70% of us who favor child health insurance to send Congress a serious wake up call: override this evil veto.

In Manhattan, Moveon Activists will rally on the West Side of Columbus Circle at 6PM Thursday You can sign up by clicking here

For those who want to take action online, Senator Patrick Lahey's Green Mountain PAC is soliciting letters to the editor about the S-CHIP over-ride. Click here.
The AFL-CIO is asking people to write their House members here

This item from Overheard in New York:

Redhead: I wish I was a pirate.
Brunette: No, you don't. Pirates are dirty. They don't have toothbrushes.
Redhead: Yeah... But they drink so much alcohol that it kills the bacteria in their mouths anyway.
Brunette: Really? Well, they still don't have health insurance...

illustrates, I think, the degree to which health insurance is on the minds of all of us. UPDATES AFTER THE JUMP

Now that The Simpsons have replaced SICKO as movie topic in my house, perhaps it’s possible to try to think through how to put health insurance on front and center on the agenda of Congress. I hope not to understate the difficulty of doing this. Some people, much better informed than I am on the nuts & bolts of health insurance, seem to think that universal single payer is just around the corner. For this view more hopeful than mine, check out this interview in The American Prospect of founders of Physicians For A National Health Program .

Something Different After Day 181. Gov. Elliot Spitzer and his NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) dramatically altered and improved the housing fate of tens of thousands of Mitchell-Lama tenants. When the owners of Mitchell-Lama projects opt out of the program, the usual rule of law had been that those tenants become rent-stabilized – no big windfall for the owner. However, some owners, seizing on language in the enabling legislation, had won a court ruling that opting out of Mitchell-Lama was itself such a “unique and peculiar circumstance” that the apartments could instantly be converted to market rate. Yesterday, the Governor and the DCHR closed that loophole. NYDN article here.

In 2003 the Bush administration adopted a rule stipulating that any organization receiving US funds for HIV/AIDS prevention must sign an "anti-prostitution pledge." The pledge requirement, introduced by right-wing New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith (R), has had devastating effects on humanitarian organizations worldwide, crippling the ability of NGOs to work with the populations most at risk from HIV, isolating sex worker advocacy organizations from their allies, and fueling discrimination against sex workers and gay people.

Because of its vague, confusing language, and because it blocks groups receiving USAID money even from using their own private funds to aid vulnerable sex workers, the pledge has effectively gutted the otherwise-laudible President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a five-year, $15 billion effort to fight the spread of the virus. Arguably, it means that PEPFAR has done more harm than good. Last year, in response to a lawsuit by the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, a federal judge here in New York found that the pledge violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. Rather than drop the requirement, however, USAID and the Department of Health and Human Services moved last month to make things even more difficult for humanitarian groups.

Now, the Network of Sex Work Projects has produced a 13-minute video called "Taking the Pledge," which interviews activists from a number of countries affected by the policy, documenting some of the harm it has done. An accompanying NSWP fact sheet explains why the pledge is so misguided:

These policies run contrary to best practices in public health and are undermining efforts to stem the spread of HIV and human trafficking. The restrictions preclude recipients of US funds from using proven effective practices to prevent the spread of HIV among marginalized populations, and undermine efforts to promote the fundamental human rights of all persons.