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California Mental Health Advocates Raise Concern Over Treatment Of ICE Detainees
The San Diego Tribune on Monday profiled the La Mesa, Calif.-based private psychiatric hospital Alvarado Parkway Institute. Some advocates say that the hospital is in a network of private hospitals that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses to hold "severely" mentally ill detainees nationwide, often "out of reach of lawyers and even their families," the Tribune reports. The number of immigration detainees has increased dramatically over recent years. According to the Tribune, about 35,000 people are being detained in a system of public or private jails and detention centers awaiting the outcomes of their immigration cases. It is unknown how many of the detainees are mentally ill and how many are held in private facilities.Some disability-rights lawyers and advocates for the mentally ill say that conditions at many of the private facilities, including API, violate state and federal laws governing treatment of mentally ill people. Ann Menasche, a lawyer with the legal advocacy group Disability Rights California, last month sent a letter to ICE claiming that after visiting API and interviewing detainees, she found that the conditions are "excessive, unjustifiable and punitive." Menasche said that immigration detainees could not socialize, exercise or participate in group therapy, and noted that they also were kept shackled to hospital beds. She said the patients also are being denied their rights to daily visitors, access to a telephone and other lawful permissions. She said other patients were not subjected to such conditions. Earlier this month, Menasche sent another letter to county officials requesting that they investigate the facility.Hospital CEO Patrick Ziemer said that the measures taken at the hospital are done for security reasons required by ICE. He added, "Patients can move about and walk around, a few steps from their bed." ICE officials declined to answer specific questions about the treatment of patients at API but said in a statement that the agency is reviewing "visitation and telephone access practices for immigration detainees being housed in private psychiatric facilities to ensure they have appropriate access to both." Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also has ordered a broader review of all ICE detention conditions (Moran, San Diego Tribune, 5/18).
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The Bazelon Center Welcomes President Obama's Pledge To People With Mental Disabilities On Olmstead's 10th Anniversary
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law welcomes President Obama"s announcement today of his commitment to the promise of the landmark Supreme Court case, Olmstead v. L.C., on its 10th anniversary. In a statement released by the White House today the President launched a "Year of Community Living" and tasked the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to identify initiatives that will develop and improve services and supports to assist people with disabilities who wish to live in the most integrated settings possible.
News of the day
Students Win Challenge To Bring Clean Water To Slums Of Mumbai, India
A team of University of Minnesota-Twin Cities students from a civil engineering class will head to India later this month to share their ideas and plans for helping bring clean water to thousands of residents living in the slums of Mumbai - the same impoverished area that provided the backdrop for the 2009 Oscar Award-winning movie, "Slumdog Millionaire."
Nutrition

Farmed Fish May Pose Risk For Mad Cow Disease

University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer"s Disease, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation"s food supply. Friedland and his co-authors suggest farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease--commonly known as mad cow disease--if they are fed byproducts rendered from cows. The scientists urge government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until the safety of this common practice can be confirmed. "We have not proven that it"s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited," Friedland said. "Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows," he added. Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is an untreatable, universally-fatal disease that can be contracted by eating parts of an animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease). An outbreak in England attributed to infected beef prompted most countries to outlaw feeding rendered cow material to other cattle because the disease is so easily spread within the same species. The risk of transmission of BSE to humans who eat farmed fish would appear to be low because of perceived barriers between species. But, according to the authors, it is possible for a disease to be spread by eating a carrier that is not infected itself. It"s also possible that eating diseased cow parts could cause fish to experience a pathological change that allows the infection to be passed between the two species. "The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe. The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public," Friedland said. There have been 163 deaths from Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in the United Kingdom attributed to eating infected beef. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been identified in nine Canadian and three U.S. cattle. Anne Eldridge IOS Press


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