Anonymous rape tests to go nationwide

Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges.The new federal requirement that states pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" is aimed at removing one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting rape cases: Some women are so traumatized they don't come forward until it is too late to collect hair, semen or other samples.

Screening for Abuse May Be Key to Ending It

In a recent nationwide study of nearly 5,000 women, only 7 percent said a health professional had ever asked them about domestic or family violence. When surveyed, doctors often respond that they don’t ask such questions because of a lack of time, training and easy access to services that help these patients. Some have reported that they worry about offending patients and believe asking won’t make any difference. . . .
Dr. Rodriguez and other experts say that urging an abused patient simply to leave may not be realistic or safe, for several reasons: The risk of being murdered is highest at the time one leaves, the woman may depend on her partner for food and shelter, and patients may not respond well to a doctor who dictates what to do. . . .
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 2001 to 2005 (the last year for which statistics are available) there was an annual average of nearly 511,000 violent assaults against women — and 105,000 against men — by a spouse or intimate partner, about half resulting in physical injury.

Newsweek story on bipolar disorder

The mothers of bipolar kids often say their babies are born screaming. These are children who live at the extremes: so giddy they can't speak in sentences, so low they refuse to speak at all. Unlike bipolar adults, they flit rapidly between emotions; sometimes they seem to feel everything at once. At least 800,000 children in the United States have been diagnosed as bipolar, no doubt some of them wrongly. The disease is hard to pin down. The bipolar brain is miswired, but no one knows why it develops that way. There are many drugs, but it's unclear how they work. Often, they don't work at all, and they may interfere with normal brain growth. There are no studies on their long-term effects in children. Yet untreated bipolar disorder can be disastrous; 10 percent of sufferers commit suicide. Parents must choose between two wrenching options: treat their children and risk a bad outcome, or don't treat and risk a worse one. No matter what they do, they are in for uncertainty and pain.

A Debunking on Teenagers and 'Technical Virginity'

Contrary to widespread belief, teenagers do not appear to commonly engage in oral sex as a way to preserve their virginity, according to the first study to examine the question nationally.
The analysis of a federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19, released yesterday, found that more than half reported having had oral sex. But those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.
"There's a popular perception that teens are engaging in serial oral sex as a strategy to avoid vaginal intercourse," said Rachel Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit research organization based in New York, who helped do the study. "Our research suggests that's a misperception."
Instead, the study found that teens tend to become sexually active in many ways at about the same time. For example, although only one in four teenage virgins had engaged in oral sex, within six months after their first intercourse more than four out of five adolescents reported having oral sex.

Tallying Mental Illness' Costs (Time Magazine)

Serious mental illnesses (SMIs), which afflict about 6% of American adults, cost society $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year, according to findings published in this month's American Journal of Psychiatry. Surveying data from nearly 5,000 participants, researchers determined that people suffering from a SMI — defined as a range of mood and anxiety disorders, including suicidal tendencies, that significantly impaired a person's ability to function for at least 30 days over the past year — earned at least 40% less than people in good mental health. "The results of this study confirm the belief that mental disorders contribute to enormous losses of human productivity," says Ronald Kessler, a Harvard professor of health care policy and lead author of the study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. . . . . "Each year the economic cost of untreated mental illness is staggering — over $100 billion on untreated mental health disorders and $400 billion on addiction disorders," Sullivan said. "Our country cannot afford to continue losing $500 billion a year to these treatable diseases."

Philippines bans kidney transplant 'tourism'

The Philippines today announced a ban on kidney transplants involving overseas patients in an effort to stamp out the murky organ trade, which preys on some of the country's most vulnerable and impoverished people. The thriving "transplant tourism" trade made the Philippines one of the world's cheapest places for wealthy foreign patients seeking to buy a new kidney. But gangs of organ traffickers often lured poor Filipinos into giving up one of their kidneys - invariably for a pittance - as the traders profited from the sales. "They feast on our poverty," said Francisco Duque, the Philippines health secretary, as he unveiled new rules barring living donors from giving organs to non-relatives. "The sale of one's body parts is condemnable and improper. We have to stop it."

Dental Clinics, Meeting a Need With No Dentist

The dental clinic in this village on the edge of the Bering Sea looks like any other, with four chairs, a well-scrubbed floor and a waiting area filled with magazines. But to the Alaska Dental Society and the American Dental Association, the clinic is a place where the rules of dentistry are flouted daily. The dental groups object not because of any evidence that the clinic provides substandard care, but because it is run by Aurora Johnson, who is not a dentist. After two years of training in a program unique to Alaska, Ms. Johnson performs basic dental work like drilling and filling cavities.
Some dentists who specialize in public health, noting that 100 million Americans cannot afford adequate dental care, say such training programs should be offered nationwide. But professional dental groups disagree, saying that only dentists, with four years of postcollegiate education, should do work like Ms. Johnson’s. And while such arrangements are common outside the United States, only one American dental school, in Anchorage, offers such a program.

Getting married for health insurance

In a poll released today, 7% of Americans said they or someone in their household decided to marry in the last year so they could get healthcare benefits via their spouse."It's a small number but a powerful result, because it shows how paying for healthcare is reflected not only in family budgets but in life decisions," said Drew E. Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which commissioned the survey as part of its regular polling on healthcare.On a broader scale, the survey found that healthcare costs outranked housing costs, rising food prices and credit card bills as a source of concern. Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed said they had experienced serious problems because of the cost of healthcare, compared with 29% who had problems getting a good job or a raise. Gasoline prices were the top economic worry, with 44% saying they had serious problems keeping up with increases at the pump.