Yearly Archives: 2009

Recommended Reading for December 31

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post.

Action Item for Europeans: European Network on Independent Living: Free Our People Now! Signature Campaign

Across Europe, thousands of disabled people still spend their lives inappropriately and unjustifiably segregated from society. With a severe lack, or complete absence, of community-based services in many European countries, untold numbers of people with disabilities have no access to quality alternatives to institutional care.

The segregation of people with disabilities in long-stay residential institutions is in itself a violation of disabled people’s human rights.

meloukhia at this ain’t livin’: Whedon’s Brunettes

It’s not enough that the Disturbed Brunette be fragile and dependent on others, she must also be unstable, and that instability must reveal tremendous danger.

Mustang Bobby at Shakesville: 2-D or Not 2-D…

But seeing a 3-D movie with the glasses would be a lost cause; I suspect that it might even make me nauseous as my brain tries to process the image from one lens to the other.

So if I go see Avatar, it will be the 2-D version. At least the studio had the courtesy to release that version so those of us without the software upgrade can see it. I just hope they don’t decide that all movies have to be done in 3-D. I may just have to go back to my BetaMax.

Amanda Kloer at Change.Org: Should Disabled Workers Be Paid Less Than Minimum Wage?

The minimum wage might have been bumped up to $7.25 an hour in 2009, but that number means little to the over 300 workers with mental disabilities working at state-run homes for the people with disabilities in Iowa. That’s because they were making, on average, $0.60 per hour for their work. One employee was even making an average of a mere $0.11 per hour, a sweatshop-level wage in any country. Yet paying employees with mental disabilities piddling wages is legal in Iowa and the rest of the country.

IPS News: RIGHTS-LAOS: Lapses with Labour – Part 2

“Most workers have limited knowledge, ultimately you don’t know how many hidden killers are in your workplace. The boss knows, but he won’t tell you,” Wang Fengping, an engineer who was once employed by Hong Kong-based Gold Peak batteries at their factory in Guongdong, China.

In 2008, Wang was unable to walk. Her kidneys had failed and she was dependent on dialysis. According to medical opinion she was unlikely to make old age. […]

The expertise does not exist to monitor the factory, nor to test the workers. Exposure limits, and the protocols needed to achieve them, are similarly absent. Detailed sex disaggregated accident or exposure reporting does not occur. There is little outside the capital a worker can do if dismissed for illness. All that is known is that some women have complained of headaches and skin rashes.

Laos like many countries is prey to development imperatives that put investment before safeguards. The New Economic Mechanism of 1986 opened the nation to foreign investment, a consumer economy and the trappings of modernisation, particularly in the cities.

Stars and Stripes: USS Cole bombing survivor dies in Fla. home

U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Johann Gokool lost his left foot when a bomb ripped a hole in the side of the USS Cole nearly a decade ago, but the injury was nothing compared with the mental torment that ravaged him almost daily. […]

One of the brothers he lived with found him dead in their home last Wednesday, just a week after his 31st birthday, Natala Gokool said. His cause of death was unknown, though she said foul play was not suspected. The family believes the seizures just became too much for his body to handle.

Cape Cod Times/AP Wire: Now hear this: Swim-proof hearing aids to get test

Today’s newest models range from the completely invisible – it sits deep in the ear canal for months at a time – to Bluetooth-enabled gadgets that open cell phones and iPods for hearing-aid users. Now the maker of that invisible hearing aid is going a step further – attempting a swim-proof version.

Let’s Bust Some Myths: People with disabilities just want to sue the world into compliance

One of my “favourite” disability stereotypes is that people with disabilities are rolling lawsuits waiting to happen. I first hit this stereotype when someone directed me to Penn & Teller’s Bullshit episode about the Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA], which focused mostly on how the ADA is all about putting people with disabilities down and treating them badly. [1. I can’t rant about this enough because this episode really pissed me off. They actually put someone in an iron lung and tried to get around New York, thus demonstrating that you can’t actually make the world accessible for everybody, so obviously the ADA is “Bullshit”.] The episode also included interviews with a town that was hit with many many many lawsuits by a lawyer who is also a wheelchair user, and financially threatened many businesses in a small town.

Another big-name voice that’s come out against the ADA as being “bad” for people with disabilities (and the nice able-bodied folks who are totally oppressed by it) is Clint Eastwood. Strangely, Eastwood didn’t care two wits about the ADA until he was sued for his boutique hotel being inaccessible. Then, suddenly, he was very concerned about the unending stream of lawsuits about accessibility. [1. And this is why I won’t watch any movie he’s in, produced, directed, mentioned as a good thing, whatever.]

There are two big problems with this theory. First, and most obvious to me, is that none of these Nice Able-Bodied Folks seem to be concerned that one needs to sue (or otherwise threaten with legal action) in order to get into buildings, get written material presented in a way you can read it, get captioning, get… well, get all sorts of “little things” that people with a variety of disabilities need in order to fully interact with the world. (Trust me, I have missed many of them myself. Many many times.) Oh, but they’re really really concerned about the poor little crippled person who is just a victim of the big bad lawyer who is totally leading them on, gosh darn it. (They are, of course, not concerned about just going “Oh, hey, let me fix that right now! No need for a law suit!” If you really think accessibility is important, and people note that your space isn’t accessible when it should be, why do you fight this suit in court? Is this some American-thing I don’t understand, being from The Great Frozen Post-Socialist Utopia of Canada? Do you lose American-points if you don’t fight law suits in court? I don’t even know.)

The second problem is that most of the people I know with disabilities don’t have the time/energy/inclination/spoons to sue about an accessibility issue.

Let me give you a personal example. (The plural of anecdote is not data, but strangely, there isn’t a lot of data available on “people not suing for accessibility-related issues”. This isn’t something pollsters ask.) Just the other day, Don and I went to the mall to take advantage of Boxing Day Sales. And, like every other time we go to the mall, it became apparent that the mall’s “accessibility plan” didn’t really include making the actual shops accessible. Lots of junk in aisles, aisles too narrow for a wheelchair, ect. (You’d think we’d stop going to the mall, but we only go about once every six months. The other mall we shop at is better, and I keep forgetting why we don’t trek out to this one very often.)

Don, kindly, pointed out that the shops I was going into didn’t have space for him. At first I thought about making complaints at each individual shop, but I wasn’t sure if the mall actually had a policy, and Canada doesn’t have an equivalent to the ADA. So, then we talked about going to the Mall Information Desk and finding out the details there. That fell through when we saw a very lengthy line, and a very harried pair of employees behind it.

In a world of sue-happy disabled people, we’d probably be contacting the Human Rights Commission, or a lawyer, or our Member of Parliament (that’s Federal government) or MLA (that’s Provincial). Instead, we came home, and agreed to stop shopping there because this is rather ridiculous.

Ultimately, I wrote a letter to the mall to bring this to their attention, but I have no idea if that will actually mean anything in the long run.

This anecdote isn’t unique by any stretch, and many people with disabilities I’ve talked to don’t even go so far as to write a letter (or an angry blog post) because this takes energy and time that could be spent doing countless other things.

People with disabilities are really no more sue-happy than your average person. Some people with disabilities, just like some average citizens, call their lawyer whenever there’s a problem – because they have a lawyer to call. Others stoically press on through life. Others write letters, to editors, to MLAs & MPs, to mall administrators. It’s almost like “disabled people” don’t all react the same way to things, and have a variety of ways of dealing with “adversity” (in the form of non-existent ramps).

So, in short, the myth of the sue-happy cripple who’s just a law suit waiting to happen is perpetuated by Nice Able-Bodied Folks who are actually full of Bullshit. [1. Okay here’s a link to “highlights” of the Bullshit episode on YouTube. It is not captioned, which I guess kinda disproves their ultimate point. I live in a country that doesn’t have an ADA, and I’m still waiting for Halifax to embrace the idea that business owners should be “more compassionate” and put in wheelchair ramps. ANY DAY NOW I’m sure it will be true.]

Recommended Reading for December 30: Bumper midweek edition

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post.

Action Item for USAns: Cripchick: human rights abuses in public schools

these are practices that are rightfully considered torture if done to prisoners but ones that still happen in our public schools. disabled youth are targeted every day for things like hand flapping and speaking out.

recently, a bill has been introduced in congress that addresses restraint and seclusion. […] right now this bill is in need of sponsors… please use this form to contact your congressman or via congress.org asap and let them know that you will not stand for human right abuses in our schools.

IPS Laos: How Women Cope With Disability – Part 1. Lacking any social supports and ditched by family, Lao women with disabilities create work & home for themselves:

In a family of 12 children, the illness [polio] came as huge blow.

When they found she could not walk, the reaction was one commonly held, she said. Attempting to protect her from taunts and embarrassment they refused to let her go to school. In frustration, she stole her sister’s uniform and turned up at school. The teacher was impressed and called on her parents to educate her.

Her parents were reluctant, insisting she learn to sew at home so she had a source of income. She did learn, but by dogged persistence attended school, eventually earning a BA, majoring in Business.

“Education for women is the key. In the old days they believed that disability was caused by something bad you did in a former incarnation. That type of thinking is still around but not as strong,” she said.

“The government of Laos has given approval and support to the Convention for the Rights of the Disabled and are currently drafting a decree which will govern national policy,” Chanhpheng said. But there is no social security, no income support for the disabled or their families. In short if you don’t work, you don’t live.

Haddayr Copley-Woods at MPR News: Insurance may pay for your wheelchair, unless you need it to go someplace

The people making decisions that will affect our day-to-day lives are people like Missouri’s junior Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill — who said a few months ago that we could save the government “hundreds of billions of dollars” by not “giving free scooters to Medicare beneficiaries who don’t really need them.” […]

I had to prove I needed it to help me eat, sleep and use the bathroom. That’s about all the federal government — or my insurance company — thinks I need to do.

Let me lay it out for you. Here is what this policy, and my own government, are saying:

Disabled people shouldn’t work. They certainly can’t support their families, but if they do, that was bad planning.

Disabled people shouldn’t parent — or at least not in public. Why did a defective person like you have kids in the first place?

It doesn’t matter if disabled people volunteer. You’ll just look weird and creepy and be in everybody’s way.

All a cripple needs is to get from the ‘fridge to the toilet to the bed. It’s all you deserve, and it’s all you’re good for.

News Herald Panama City: No scooters allowed at St. Andrews State Park — yet

Jessica Kemper Sims, information director for the Florida Park Service, confirmed the use of motorized scooters, even for the handicapped, is prohibited on state beaches.[…]

Sims said a non-motorized “beach wheelchair” was available free of charge at the Jetty store at St. Andrews State Park and the wheelchair “is used frequently.” Those wheelchairs are not motorized and “require the assistance of another person to be pushed through the sand,” Sims wrote.

KETV Omaha: Disabled Woman Waits For City To Clear ‘Lifeline’ [hat tip to ZeaLitY]

A disabled woman has been trapped inside her home since the most recent snowstorm while the city tries to figure out a method for clearing an alley that serves as her lifeline to the city.

NPR: Intellectually Disabled Student Wins Dorm Suit

[Micah] Fialka-Feldman, 24, attends classes at Oakland University, as part of a program for students like him, with intellectual disabilities. The campus is about 20 miles from where he lives with his parents in Huntington Woods, Mich.

A few years ago, Fialka-Feldman helped his younger sister Emma move into her dorm room when she went off to college at Mount Holyoke. It gave him another reason to want to live on campus: He thought he was missing out on an important part of college life. But his school said because he was in a special program and not a full-time student, he couldn’t live on campus.

So Micah sued.

Early yesterday morning, his cell phone rang. It was his lawyer with the news: He had won. “I’m happy and I’m proud,” say Fialka-Feldman.

Charlotte Observer: Judge backs lawsuit by disabled pair for independent living

A federal judge Monday prohibited the state and a local mental health management office from cutting services to two Wilson-area people with mental illness and developmental disabilities until they get a full hearing on their lawsuit seeking to continue independent living.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle said it’s likely that two residents identified in the lawsuit as Marlo M., 39, and Durwood W., 49, would suffer irreparable harm if a local mental health office went through with a money-saving plan to move them from their apartments.

And, to wind up, a collection of links on race disparities and the US health & health care debates. Check them all out.

MPR News: Racial disparities a concern in health debate

Sonia Sekhar at The Wonk Room: Racial and Ethnic Minorities’ Stake in Health Reform

Tapped: Health Reform: Race And Representation.

bfp at flipfloppingjoy: Pet Peeve Saturday

mama at guerilla mama medicine: canary in the mine

Quickpress: Upcoming Carnivals!

11th Carnival of Feminists, focusing on Gender Across Borders, is accepting submissions until January 5!

The 62nd Disability Blog Carnival will be at Uppity Crip/Finding My Way, and the theme is holidays! Deadline for submissions is January 11th.

The 5th Asian Women’s Blog Carnival, with the theme of Who I Am When I’m (not) With You, is accepting submissions until February 12th.

The next Down Under Feminists Carnival is planned for 5th January, 2010, and hosted by PharaohKatt at Something More Than Sides. Optional theme: Feminism and Childcare. (So, breastfeeding, parental leave, adoption, childcare as feminism…) Submissions to pharaohkatt at gmail dot com for those who can’t access blogcarnival.

I’m always happy to signal-boost Carnivals, and am not under the mistaken impression that I know all of them. Poke me to remind me of relevant carnivals you know of!

Veterans Find Self Expression and Therapy

Moderatrix’ Incredibly Verbose Note: The linked article in Stars & Stripes held a couple of problems for me. One: It gave an impression that pharmaceutical therapy is somehow not a reasonable treatment for people dealing with mental health or anxiety disorders. This should not be taken as the opinion of myself, nor any member of the FWD/Forward team. I believe that it shows how stigmatized that direction of therapy can be, and how mental health services can be socialized to make men feel “weak” for needing them. How a person chooses to treat their mental health or social anxiety disorders is between themselves and their health care provider. Comments judging this course of therapy will be deleted and the commenter possibly banned pending a review. I will not have someone coming to this board and seeing their choice of therapy, which is helping them, mocked or dismissed.

Two: The linked article says that bibliotherapy is “poetry therapy”, when nothing I have found is that specific. Anything that I have found online, as well as my background in Greek and Latin root words, says that bibliotherapy is any type of therapy using the written word as supplemental therapy. I found that statement by the S&S writer misleading. I am willing to be corrected, but I am more inclined to believe that it is a part of a broad spectrum of treatment options. I find it like saying that “pharmaceutical therapy” means keeping someone pumped full of morphine all the time (not that there is anything wrong with that if that is what you need to manage your specific needs).

Nonetheless, I found the article incredibly interesting, and am ecstatic to find that veterans are finding ways to get care in ways that make them comfortable. Enjoy.

Spc. Victoria Montenegro received an Army Commendation Medal, complete with a “V” for Valor for helping her other team mates when her vehicle exploded in Karbala, Iraq. That same accident also threw shrapnel into her forehead and right eye. It gave her a complex fracture and bone loss in her left hand.

It also left her with PTSD.

Spc. Matt Ping also came back from “The Sandbox”, his time spent in Northern Afghanistan, he found himself mixing flashback with childhood memories. For him, the thought of a pharmaceutical approach, the normal approach taken by the VA, was too unappealing.

For both of them, a different kind of therapy program has been incredibly beneficial.

The Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. has a program, run by Roseanne Singer, that helps veterans deal with their PTSD through the written word, mostly poetry. Participants are welcome to come to an informal gathering that takes place in the lobby of the Mologne House. Participants are under no obligation to participate, they may come whenever they feel comfortable, talk as much or as little as they like, and share or not share what they have written. The program does not analyze or critique, but rather focuses on getting veterans who find it otherwise difficult to communicate their feelings to convey them through writing. Or, as Ping , also now a part of Lisa Rosenthal’s Vet Art Project in Chicago describes poetry therapy:

“Poetry helps me deal with coming back to a society that’s gone in a different direction,” Ping said. “Coming home is one of the strangest things I’ve ever encountered. The 16 months of isolation and being secluded and then coming back and trying to be the same person you were before you left. I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Ping also has a blog where he shares his poetry (I have only scanned the front page, and I make no guarantees about triggering language).

Montenegro’s poetry focuses on the pain of being a “young, short, wounded female in a world of men,”.

“A lot of times around the hospital, I’d be mistaken for somebody’s family member,” she said. “It bugged me.”

Overall, finds the self-paced program beneficial, and enjoys the control over her own healing the . There is no pressure to heal at an expected rate, no one telling her that she should be over it by now. If she doesn’t want to share something, she doesn’t have to.

You can read her poem “Perspectives” (which I thought was moving) at the S&S link, and if you have a flash player you can listen to her read it.

The more ways we find to help our returning troops the better. If they aren’t thriving in the traditional therapy programs (and I can understand why), or if they aren’t being given proper therapy in addition to their drug treatments (I can relate), then we need to find therapy programs that do help them. We owe it to them.

Recommended Reading for December 29

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post.

Wheelchair Dancer: Charity, One Non-Person At A Time

I am angered by the exploitation of individuals for organizational support. In part, I know that this is “how it’s done.” A local organization whose facilities and services I use called me to “get my story.” They were going to use me for fundraising. I was on the phone for half an hour; the interviewer struck me as greedy. Greedy for the details of my tragedy and overcoming. Greedy for the story of my pain and recovery. I didn’t have a good feeling about this, but I hung in.

Then, my interviewer dropped a bombshell.

Astrid at Astrid’s Journal: Care Packaging for the Blind

Even though even mildly disabled people with visual impairments, may have difficulties with domestic care and organizational tasks that require access to information, if you can carry out your own personal care, all you are supposed to need is some “help” (which the hours you’re approved for are not enough for), “stimulation” and “guidance”. Have the people who created this guide, ever met a single blind care user, who could explain to them their real care needs?

Media Access Australia: Social Media Accessibility Review [note that MAA focuses on sensory disabilities]

Media Access Australia has ranked the following services in order of accessibility:

1. Facebook: Facebook has made great efforts to include a wealth of accessibility features and is a good choice for people with disabilities.

2. Skype: Skype has delivered an accessible product, but they must be conscious that new versions maintain the good work done to date.

3. YouTube: YouTube has put a lot of work into the accessibility features of their site and this has been backed by a recently launched centralised accessibility portal offered by Google, YouTube’s owners.

4. Flickr: Flickr is only somewhat accessible. It still has some way to go before the site will be open to all users, but the launch of an accessible lab shows promise.

5. Twitter: Twitter has grown rapidly over a short period of time and the site has fallen short of introducing a number of easy to install accessibility features.

6. MySpace: MySpace is an inaccessible site. It has failed to deliver an accessibility policy and has no evidence of accessible design built into the service.

BBC: Rape complaint woman reaches settlement with police [WARNING]

In the first known case of its kind, a woman who made a rape complaint which was not investigated properly has reached an out of court settlement with police. Catherine says the man who raped her knew he was targeting a particularly vulnerable woman. […]

Catherine first spoke to the police in December 2005. In February 2006, she contacted them to find out how the investigation was going. Nothing at all had been done. It hadn’t been recorded as a crime.

A sergeant later said that the paperwork had been on his desk and he had forgotten about it.

Center for American Progress: How to Close the LGBT Health Disparities Gap

Furthermore, many LGBT people face outright hostility from their health care providers. One of the few existing studies of the transgender community shows that up to 39 percent of all transgender people face some type of harassment or discrimination when seeking routine health care.

Similarly, a general lack of data on LGBT people makes it difficult for doctors and other health care providers to learn about the LGBT population’s needs. This lack of information and data is reflected by the fact that most medical schools do not offer any coursework or instruction on the health needs of LGBT people.

The Globe and Mail: Nearly 50 MDs back doctor alleged to have abused welfare food forms

“A ruling against Dr. Wong would result in physicians becoming far more cautious in how they fill out the forms … and the end result from that, of course, will be less money being available to people living in poverty to be able to meet their basic needs,” said Toronto family physician Gary Bloch. […] Ontario’s special diet program allows people on social assistance to get extra money for special dietary needs if they have diabetes or celiac disease, or are obese.

Recommended Reading for December 28

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post.

* ACTION ITEM for USAns: Corina Becker at No Stereotypes Here – Neurodiversity activist blog: Youngest Autistic Nominee on National Council on Disability

Not too long ago I posted the Press Release from the White House announcing that Ari Ne’eman of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network has been nominated by President Obama to the National Council on Disability. […] If you haven’t gathered from all the ruckus that’s being made across the Internet, this is a big deal, for two reasons:

The first is that he is the first openly autistic appointee, breaking the unsaid barriers keeping autistic people from being a part of the decision process regarding, well, everything about our lives. This marks a major step in the inclusion of autistic people as a part of society, not just in terms of social inclusion, but also on the political and governmental level, and recognizes us as citizens of the countries we live in, with the rights, freedoms and responsibilities that being a citizen includes. […]

Yet, because he doesn’t see autism and disabilities as an automatically negative element, but instead as a person’s difference that can result in unique challenges and difficulties in a setting that is ill-suited to accommodate and support individuals, there are groups out there who would rather Ari not be a member of the NCD. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement; they are venomously against Ari and the neurodiversity movement of thought.

But of course, for returning readers of this blog, this really should not be a surprise. And of course, these people are exercising their right of free speech and protestation to encourage people to write to their Senators, stating that they are against Ari.

Now, this is up to each of you, but I would ask people who support Ari, even marginally, to contact their Senators and give them a balanced view on this, in that there are members of the autistic and cross-disability community who support Ari.

Sarah at Cat in a Dog’s World: On Failing Girlhood: Thoughts on Gender & Disability

My own pale legs bore thick, dark hair well into my teens until someone informed me that my body’s natural hair was in fact repulsive and needed to be removed from sight. My mother said I looked like a European woman, and I’m still not sure how that is entirely a bad thing. Of course, all methods of removing said body hair involved unpleasant sensory input and required that I pay more attention to such things than I felt at all inclined to do.

io9: 20 Science Fiction Characters Who Got Their Legs Back

Chances are, you’ve come across lots of SF stories where a disabled person regains the ability to walk in some fantastical way. Usually it’s a guy, and his ability to stand up on his two legs is portrayed as a reclaiming of his virility and power. Often times, the disabled hero regains full mobility along the way towards becoming super-powered — or as part of a package of superpowers.

Express.co.uk: Outrage at £250 Tax on Mobility Scooters

CAMPAIGNERS are today launching a fresh attempt to reverse a £250 EU tax which puts mobility scooters in the same class as Formula One racing cars. […]

Equipment for the ­disabled is normally exempt from tax.

Spearheading the latest attempt to overturn a tax that classes scooters as ­leisure vehicles like racing cars and so attract a 10 per cent import duty, is Scottish Parliament MP Bill Wilson.

Denver Post: Greene: Colo. funding decision stymies disabled supermom

At 38, she’s deaf and legally blind, though you’d never know it. She has a progressive neuromuscular disease that requires her to use a ventilator to breathe and a wheelchair to get around. She’s a talented lawyer and leading advocate for disabled parents in Colorado. She has adopted three daughters of her own, all with disabilities. And she’s raising a 15-year-old foster child who faced adolescence institutionalized until Lucas brought her home to Windsor, where she’s now thriving. […]

Lucas, no doubt, will cringe at being described in such superlatives, the embodiment of the untiring supercrip. Getting to work, getting things done and getting home each day are her life, real life, however rewarding or difficult. It’s what she does, just like the rest of us.

The state apparently takes a different view.

On Dec. 3, Lucas underwent surgery to insert a tracheotomy in her neck. The tubing gets blocked and disconnected, especially when she’s sleeping. Before the trach, Medicaid had paid $7,762 a month for an aide 12 hours a day who helps Lucas bathe and dress, tend to her health care needs and run her busy household. The state agreed to boost her allocation to about $15,000 to pay for the 24-hour care she now needs to make sure air is pushing into her lungs. But officials wouldn’t authorize payment, seeking instead to place her in a nursing home indefinitely.

Voice Of America: Sailors With Disabilities Ready to Tackle Classic Australian Yacht Race

Blind and paraplegic sailors as well as others with physical disabilities will crew a boat in one of the world’s great ocean events, the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race. The race, which starts on Saturday, is one of the toughest competitions of its kind anywhere.

Berkeley Daily Planet: Caltrans Settles Class Action Disability Access Lawsuit

In a landmark achievement, Caltrans announced Tuesday a billion dollar settlement agreement with disability rights advocates to improve sidewalk access.

Does Outright Speculation Make This Disabled Feminist Angry?

Answer: Yes.

Let’s talk about this piece-of-crap article recently published on that oh-so-“liberal” news n’ culture site, Salon.com. I’m prefacing this post with a warning for ableist language and concepts on the part of the article’s author, Rahul K. Parikh, M.D. The article begins as follows:

There was a time when a celebrity’s sudden death almost invariably meant illegal drugs…[a]nd so it seems with Brittany Murphy, the bubbly and bright actress who died of cardiac arrest at 32.

Yes, it seems. Point is, we don’t know much yet. There are other health-related issues or conditions that can lead to cardiac arrest, but is this acknowledged? Of course not! Parikh continues:

The coroner’s notes allegedly claim a pharmacopia in Murphy’s bathroom cabinet: Topamax (for seizures or migraines), methylprednisolone (a steroid), fluoxetine (an antidepressant), Klonopin (for anxiety), carbamazepine (for seizures or bipolar disorder), Ativan (for anxiety), Vicoprofen (pain reliever), propranolol (for hypertension, migraines or anxiety), Biaxin (an antibiotic), and hydrocodone (a narcotic pain reliever). Gone are the days of shameful crack pipes and empty gin bottles.

OH MY GOD, EVERYBODY PANIC.

Murphy’s medications, like those of [Heath] Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith, are on the shelves of your local drugstore, available with a simple trip to the doctor — or doctors — whom you merely need to convince that you need the stuff. Did one doctor prescribe her those meds? Did 10? We don’t yet know. But as a doctor myself, I just kept wondering (and not for the first time): What if doctors were more like librarians? Would Brittany Murphy still be alive?

Cue scary music! THE DANGER IS ON THE SHELVES OF YOUR LOCAL DRUGSTORE. Nevermind that people with chronic pain conditions and disabilities have to jump through numerous, often ridiculous hoops just to get, say, a month’s supply of medications that help them function and/or live life to the fullest extent possible. As one of these people, I am of the opinion that Parikh is being rather disingenuous here; these drugs, at least for us “average” folk with chronic pain issues, are usually not easy to obtain.

After nattering about how the medical field should follow the example of public libraries when it comes to monitoring people and their books meds, he continues:

One of the many negative consequences of such fragmentation is how ridiculously easy it can be to get drugs. Most doctors know patients who have desperately angled to get a prescription they don’t need, usually highly addictive pain medicines like Percocet or OxyContin. This is what we call “doctor shopping,” hopping from one physician to the next until they find someone willing to write a script. When the supply dries up, they go to another doctor, and then another. One 53-year-old man in California visited 183 doctors and 47 pharmacies in one year to support his addiction to painkillers.

Hey, nice use of anecdata there! What on earth does one 53 year-old guy in California have to do with Brittany Murphy’s situation? As for “most doctors” knowing a patient who has “angled” for meds they “don’t need” (who makes that judgement, I wonder?): cry me a goddamn river. The endless Helen Lovejoy-gasping about ADDICTION!!1 in fact makes it incredibly hard for some of us who need these medications to obtain them, and no amount of 1984-esque War is Peace anecdata–from someone, no less, who is supposed to help people in pain as part of his chosen occupation–is going to change that.

In short, the experiences of people with chronic pain are going be different than those of an able-bodied doctor, but nowhere is this acknowledged in this article–nor is it mentioned in many larger conversations about  painkillers and (possible) ADDICTION!!11.

Most of us who need these medications do not have the energy to doctor-shop. I do not wish to deny that painkiller addiction is a serious problem; it is, for some. Sadly, these sorts of “conversations” on the specter of supposedly widespread PAINKILLER ADDICTION!!!1–much like those focusing on the OBESITY CRISIS!!11–tend to focus entirely too much attention on extreme cases and anecdata, leaving out those who need these medications for legitimate medical reasons, and, I might add, some of whom spend a great portion of time proving said legitimacy in order to show that they are not addicts or doctor-shoppers.

But if “preventing” ADDICTION!11 in able-bodied people via endless hand-wringing about who “really” needs these drugs versus who doesn’t is the number one priority here, that is a problem. Yet again, the needs of those who are judged by society as most “important” or productive or fitting into able-bodied society are taken seriously, and the needs of those who do not fit this mold–because they need painkillers for actual pain and are therefore bad/unproductive/just a bunch of whiners–are ignored, or worse, actively shamed and castigated for things or circumstances that they cannot control.

And, as OuyangDan pointed out so eloquently on this very blog, there are a lot of things that we don’t know about Brittany Murphy’s death. Using her death as a poorly-researched, almost totally speculative “example” of the dangers of painkiller ADDICTION!!11 is not only tasteless, but it distracts from how ridiculously the concerns about painkillers, “legitimacy” and the specter of addiction are often framed by (mostly privileged) people who do not deal with these things in their daily lives.

Less infuriating: Many of the commenters seem to agree that this article and its “speculation” went too far, which is unusual for Salon commenters, as most of them tend to exemplify the worst of privileged white “liberalism” on a regular basis (as you would expect, this includes loads of abled privilege and the anecdata to back up their uninformed opinions).