Disability Futures

http://goo.gl/iRlrXd

Add ableism to the list of “isms” in regard to perspectives on disabilities.

In a two-day training session, Michele McGowen and Joanne Johnson of the Disability Network of Southwest Michigan discussed the systemic, institutional, cultural discrimination and oppression of disabled people, or ableism.

“We have all of these expectations for people with disabilities to live separately or live in a different way that we don’t have for people without disabilities,” Johnson said. “Or we expect less from people with disabilities and so we offer them less opportunities to show what they can do.”

http://goo.gl/jjV5Sr

“We are too infrequently a part of the conversation,” said Lex Frieden, one of the chief architects of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act. Summit organizers ultimately invited Frieden to speak on a panel about social justice. But disability rights supporters say the episode was a wake-up call to mobilize in bigger numbers and stop being an afterthought. Advocates have launched a voter registration and education effort. They’re inviting candidates for top political offices to speak at a September conference on disability issues. They’re planning events to celebrate the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. “Disability rights are civil rights,” said Bob Kafka of the advocacy group ADAPT of Texas

http://goo.gl/tWn7GW

Three days each week, I load up a wagon with brown paper bags containing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies and fruit. Most of the people who take the lunches are homeless; many of them sleep in the park or places nearby. In my work, I’ve come to understand that homelessness is a disability issue. Dennis Culhane, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania  and the director of research for the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans, writes that “nearly all of the long-term homeless have tenuous family ties and some kind of disability, whether it is a drug or alcohol addiction, a mental illness or a physical handicap” (Culhane 2010). My experience serving homeless people has shown me the truth of Culhane’s assertion. The vast majority of people to whom I deliver food have disabilities.

Joe Reddington pulled together the most viewed 43 TED talks with disability as a theme....

http://goo.gl/zMta0B 

As before, there are a lot of talks that mention disability only in passing, or in the sense of “disabling the security”. So I ended up removing quite a few (I removed Dave Eggers with a heavy heart – I liked his so much that I went to visit the project in San Francisco).  The problem, of course is that, this being TED, *everything* is inspirational and wonderful.  Stephen Hawking even had his removed because it’s about the universe (it’s excellent, it’s just not disability-facing).  Alice Dreger, as it happens is where I’m putting the boundary for now.

The plan was to then take the top 40 for this list.

The problem was that after you have removed all the ones that aren’t really about disability you end up with few left. 43 in fact. So this list contains all 43 mainstream disability TED talks. Please let me know in the comments all the ones that I’ve missed and then I can iterate the list in the same way as my list of disability blogs.

http://networkedblogs.com/WxGPB

Norm (Kunc, not me) was there, and his “Euthanasia Blues” provided a rollicking start.

My wonky part was described this way in the program:  Medical discrimination against people with disabilities, sometimes resulting in death through the nonconsensual withholding of life sustaining treatment, has been a longstanding and increasing concern among disability advocates, especially under the threat of healthcare budget cuts and rationing. Over the last two decades, health care decisions laws have been amended to increase the likelihood that people will sign advance directives and POLST forms refusing life sustaining treatment, and that surrogate decision makers will refuse treatment on behalf of relatives without advance directives. There are also concerns about organ transplant professionals denying transplant eligibility based on disability, as well as pushing for withdrawal of life support from disabled people in order to harvest their organs for others. Most states have “futile care” laws and policies allowing physicians to withhold life-sustaining treatment over the expressed objection of the individual or their surrogate. Evidence of passive euthanasia in violation of the civil rights of people with disabilities, such as that described in the National Disability Rights Network report, “Devaluing People with Disabilities: Medical Procedures that Violate Civil Rights” (May 2012), will be explored, as well as potential avenues for addressing these violations.

http://goo.gl/OjcBER

More than three years after publication of final regulations to implement Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions that strengthen provider and supplier enrollment screening provisions under federal health care programs, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has selected a Fingerprint-Based Background Check Contractor (FBBC) and intends to phase in fingerprint-based background checks beginning in 2014.

By way of background, CMS published a final rule on February 2, 2011 pursuant to Section 640 of the ACA, which required the Department of Health and Human Services to establish procedures for screening providers and suppliers participating in federal health care programs (specifically, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program).  Among other things, the final rule applies various screening tools, including unannounced site visits, background checks, and fingerprinting, based on the level of risk associated with different provider and supplier types.  CMS established three levels of risk – limited, moderate, and high – and every provider and supplier category is assigned to one of these three levels.  Individuals who maintain a 5 percent or greater direct or indirect ownership interest in a provider or supplier in the high risk category -- including newly-enrolling home health agencies (HHAs) and newly-enrolling durable medical equipment, orthotics, prosthetics, and supplies (DMEPOS) suppliers -- are subject to a fingerprint-based criminal history report check of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. 

http://goo.gl/MJeHqd

So what is human trafficking? It is the illegal trading of human beings for commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. It is modern day slavery, where people profit from the control and exploitation of others. Human trafficking is an abuse of human rights.

In 2009, 21 men with disabilities were emancipated from an old school house in Atalissa, Iowa where they lived and worked nearby at a turkey processing plant for $2.00 a day.

In 2011, four individuals with disabilities were found locked in a Tacony, Pennsylvania basement.

In 2013, a woman with a disability and her child were found after being held in Ashland, Ohio for two years.

Also in 2013, a Columbus, Georgia senior home is shutdown after an FBI investigation found the residents (elders and people with disabilities) were victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation at the hands of the owner and staff.

While these stories made national news, there are many more that never do. Due to the very nature of human trafficking activities, it is very difficult to come up with accurate statistics on trafficking.

Another step......

http://goo.gl/zIjBFl

“What happened today is a big step forward in the fight to ban aversives and to free those currently at the judge Rotenberg Center,” said disability rights activist Ari Ne’eman, who attended the hearing.

The panel of experts’ will make several recommendations to the US Food and Drug Administration regarding the use of the shocks for treatment. The only place they are used in the country is at the Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Center.

http://www.rxsim.com/

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We are a global community...

http://goo.gl/50q9It

The protesters are asking for help in drawing attention to their struggle on an international level. Below is a translation of their appeal to journalists.

If any English speaking journalists would like to contact them or need help with translation, please contact the local ZSP (is@zsp.net.pl) which can help with this.

(People can also refer to this previous article to get an idea of the situation:http://zsp.net.pl/care-providers-adults-disabilities-protest-against-anti-social-politics-government)

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