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Lambda Legal Files Suit Against Assisted-Living Facility For Allegedly Discriminating Against HIV-Positive Resident
Lambda Legal, a group that represents HIV-positive people, on Tuesday filed a law suit against the Fox Ridge assisted-living facility in North Little Rock, Ark., for allegedly evicting a resident because he is HIV-positive, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.The Rev. Robert Franke, a retired biology and religion professor who was diagnosed with HIV in 1987, moved into Fox Ridge, which is operated by Parkstone Living Center, in February. The day after he moved into the facility, an unidentified administrator told his daughter, Sara Franke Bowling, that her "superiors" said Franke needed to be discharged from the facility "because of his HIV." Franke disclosed his HIV status on application materials before moving into the facility. The suit alleges that Parkstone violated the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Arkansas Civil Rights Act and requests a permanent injunction to prevent the facility from denying apartments or services to people living with HIV/AIDS. The suit also seeks compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys" fees and costs. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele. The facility declined to comment on the suit. Julie Munsell, a spokesperson for the state Department of Human Services, said Arkansas law allows for people who have been discharged for assisted-living facilities to remain in the facility pending a hearing if the discharge is appealed. Munsell said the department"s Long-Term Care Division received notice that Franke was appealing the discharge but that the appeal was later dismissed without a hearing. According to Munsell, facilities are not permitted to discharge residents based on medical diagnoses but that some facilities have said they do not have the capacity to provide care for certain conditions. Munsell also said that Fox Ridge is "claiming that they did not admit this client so there is no need for a hearing." Scott Schoettes, staff attorney for Lambda"s HIV Project, said that Franke was not seeking medical care from Fox Ridge, although the facility does provide medical services. "He didn"t require any services beyond which they were licensed to provide," Schoettes said. Franke"s eviction is "particularly blatant and egregious, but unfortunately, not all that uncommon," Schoettes said, adding, "This happens all across the country. We want to send a message that this kind of discrimination is not going to be tolerated" (Satter, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 5/13).
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Non-Surgical Treatment For Pre-Cancerous Condition Of Esophagus Is Effective And Reduces Risk For Cancer Development
Results from a clinical study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine reveal that ablative therapy using the HALO system (BARRX Medical, Inc.) is highly effective for complete eradication of a pre-cancerous condition of the esophagus called Barrett"s esophagus afflicting more than 3.3 million Americans. Additionally, ablative therapy using the HALO system reduced the risk of progression to cancer in the highest risk cohort studied (compared to control) from 19.0% to 2.4%.
News of the day
New Risk Management System Reduces Bariatric Surgery Complication Rate By 65 %, Hospital Readmissions By 80 %
A new scoring system that rates a bariatric surgery patient"s risk of complications on a scale of 1 to 4 can help reduce post-surgical complications by 65 percent and hospital readmission rates by more than 80 percent, according to a new study presented today at the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS).
Mental Health

Inhaled Growth Hormone Safe For Children Deficient In This Key Protein

A multi-center clinical trial led by a Riley Hospital for Children endocrinologist has found that inhaled growth hormone (GH) is well tolerated by children with GH deficiency and that this easy-to-use method can, over a one-week period, safely deliver GH to the blood stream. In addition to having implications for those who need GH, this first pediatric study of administering it through the lungs may also help researchers interested in using this convenient method for effectively delivering other types of medications to children. Results of the study appear in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. "We need to find less painful ways of administering drugs to children and we were pleased to see that inhaling GH raised the levels of two important indicators in the blood in these children for whom GH was prescribed for growth hormone deficiency or multiple pituitary hormone deficiencies," said Emily Walvoord, M.D., associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, who is the Riley Hospital physician coordinating investigator of the five-center study of 22 patients. Children taking growth hormone typically must endure years of daily injections. All of the participants in this study preferred the inhaled version of the drug to injections. They ranged in age from 6 to 16 and had no trouble using the inhaler. GH is a small peptide hormone which is easily broken down by stomach acid and therefore cannot be taken as a pill. Synthetic GH has been available by injection since 1985. Previous studies have found that nearly one fourth of children miss more than three GH injections each month and 13 percent miss more than half their injections. Thus the development of new delivery options holds promise for improved compliance and treatment effectiveness, as well as patient satisfaction. "For this study we based our dose levels on previous adult studies of inhaled GH, but we found that children have different physiologies and drug absorption rates when the drug is delivered via the lungs. We saw that children in the study needed higher doses of GH to attain the same blood level as the adults. This finding is an important one because it highlights that children are not miniature adults and need specially tailored therapies, particularly when considering the development of new drugs to be given by inhalation into the lungs," said Dr. Walvoord. This first study of the use of inhaled GH in children was funded by Eli Lilly and Co., which manufactured the drug. In addition to Riley Hospital, the other study sites were Cincinnati Children"s Hospital, Rainbow Babies and Children"s Hospital (Cleveland), Children"s Mercy Hospital (Kansas City) and Sophia Children"s Hospital (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) In addition to Dr. Walvoord, authors of "Inhaled Growth Hormone (GH) Compared with Subcutaneous GH in Children with GH Deficiency: Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Safety" are Amparo de la Peç±a, M.D., Soomin Park, Ph.D., Gordon Cutler, M.D. and John J. Chipman, M.D. of Eli Lilly; Bernard Silverman of Alkermes Inc.; Leona Cuttler, M.D, of Case Western Reserve University; Susan R. Rose, M.D. of the University of Cincinnati; and Stenvert Drop, M.D., Ph.D., of Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands. IUPUI


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