WASHINGTON (AP) — Because of a string of security lapses, the U.S. Secret Service didn’t realize for four days that a man had fired a high-powered rifle at the White House in 2011.
Following an investigation The Washington Post concludes the Secret Service bungled the response to the shooting. An Idaho man was sentenced to 25 years in prison for firing at least seven bullets at the White House on November 11, 2011. The president and Michelle Obama were away, but one daughter was home.
The Post reported a White House usher expressed concerns about the safety for Malia Obama, who was to arrive within minutes of the incident.
In a statement to The Associated Press, the Secret Service said it beefed up White House security following a review of the incident.
TOPEKA — A plan to redistribute donor livers from areas where donor numbers are higher, like Kansas City and the South, to organ-needy coastal areas is on hold after protests from members of Congress representing the areas that would have seen transplant wait times increase.
That group included U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, a Republican who serves the Kansas City area. Yoder said last week’s meeting of the United Network for Organ Sharing’s Liver and Intestinal Organ Transplantation Committee resulted in tabling a proposal to change to the way the organs are distributed.
“It’s my understanding the result of last week’s UNOS forum was to further review the process, and no changes will be made in the immediate future,” Yoder said in an emailed statement. “I still believe the best solution moving forward is to work to increase organ donor rates across the country and ultimately save more lives. I would like to see other states replicate the processes used by Kansas organizations such as the Midwest Transplant Network and Gift of Life.”
Richard Gilroy, a University of Kansas Hospital physician who sits on the liver transplant committee, confirmed that after a series of votes the committee decided it was not ready to recommend a change to the way organs are distributed.
“What the ultimate decision was is that we are currently still looking at redistricting, but the model that was proposed in its current form isn’t moving forward,” Gilroy said.
Regional variation
There are 11 regions for organ sharing in the United States, and the amount of time a person in need of a liver transplant might wait varies widely from region to region.
In the Kansas City area, it might be a matter of months, while on the coasts wait times can run five years or longer. According to Yoder’s office, about 6,000 liver transplants are performed annually and about 12,000 Americans await a liver transplant.
According to a UNOS concept paper on the proposed reallocation, 1,523 patients died while awaiting a liver transplant in 2013 and another 1,552 were removed from the transplant eligibility lists because they had become too sick for a transplant to have a high likelihood of success.
The proposed realignment was developed through a computer-generated algorithm that projected about 500 fewer deaths per year by evening the wait times nationwide. Those who currently have short wait times could survive longer before their transplant, according to the projections, allowing those who currently have longer wait times and greater risk of death to receive organs sooner.
But Gilroy said some on the committee had serious questions about the algorithm’s limitations in predicting continued organ donation patterns.
“People change their behaviors,” Gilroy said. “The model, which is fragile, fails to predict what’s going to happen, and you could see the opposite happen. You could see more deaths.”
Gilroy said some on the committee also had concerns about the cost and risks of waiting longer for transplants and the cost and risks of transporting organs farther. When an organ has to travel by plane, the transplant teams “fly in any weather,” he said, and in recent years nine people on those teams have died in two crashes.
“So if we have three times the number of flights, we have three times the possibility of transplant teams going down,” Gilroy said.
Gilroy said the committee is looking at other organ distribution models, including one based on concentric circles or geographic radius from the donation site. But he said it would be months before it had anything to present publicly.
Proposal generated concern
Concern about the proposed computer-algorithm model caused an unusual amount of interest in UNOS. More than 300 people registered for a public forum on the liver transplant idea Sept. 16 in Chicago. Others listened online.
Before that forum and the committee meeting that followed the next day, Yoder and about 50 of his congressional colleagues took the rare step of writing a letter protesting the proposed reallocation to Mary Wakefield of the Health Resources and Services Administration. UNOS is a nonprofit, but Wakefield’s agency, under the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, administers the UNOS contract to manage the nation’s organ transplant system.
In the letter, Yoder acknowledged the “large geographic disparity in the rates of organ donation,” but said regions with high donation rates should not be punished by seeing their organs go to others.
“Kansans, and the Midwest as a whole, are historically generous organ donors and UNOS should not adopt proposals that punish successful programs and decrease access to organs where donation rates are highest,” Yoder said. “We must implement programs that raise the organ donor consent rate in the areas of the country where disparities in wait times are the greatest.”
To increase donation rates elsewhere, Yoder and others are encouraging other regions to adopt grassroots donor education programs, like one promoted by Overland Park-based Gift of Life. That nonprofit organization, with four employees, was formed by families with children in need of transplants.
KC program plays a role
Keith Anderson, executive director of Gift of Life, said its signature outreach program, Lifesavers, has reached more than 200,000 people in the Kansas City area by sending speakers to 90 area high schools and talking to students about what it means to sign up to be an organ donor when they get their driver’s licenses. The students are then encouraged to talk with their parents about organ donation.
Gift of Life uses surveys to track the effectiveness of the program, he said, and about 74 percent of the students reached say they want to become donors.
Anderson said most cities have organ transplant hospitals and an “organ procurement organization” responsible for the logistics of transporting organs from donors to those hospitals. But few have organizations like Gift of Life, dedicated solely to organ donation education.
“Those three things together are really what make it work,” Anderson said. “Most cities only have two of the three.”
Anderson said Yoder “did step up to the plate” in encouraging further review of the proposed reallocation plan, and Gilroy played a key role as a member of the UNOS liver committee.
“His message as a member of the committee has been you can look at the mathematical models, but if the other states are not doing anything for community education, they’re not doing anything to increase organ donations,” Anderson said.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has been inundated with public criticism following the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in a St. Louis suburb.
As protests mounted following the Aug. 9 shooting, so too did the frustration directed at Nixon.
Records obtained by The Associated Press show that Nixon’s office received thousands of phone calls and hundreds of emails, letters and faxes from people across Missouri and even the world. Most of the correspondence was critical of the governor — first for not acting quickly enough as police used tear gas on protesters and later for appearing to call for the prosecution of the officer.
Nixon told the AP that getting criticized comes with the job and that he was focused on getting the situation in Ferguson under control.
MARYVILLE- One teen was killed and three injured in an accident just after 11 p.m. on Saturday in Nodaway County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Mercury Cougar driven by Ty B. Willtrout, 18, Maryville, was eastbound on Route V four miles west of Maryville. The vehicle ran off the south side of the road. The driver overcorrected, the vehicle overturned and ejected a female passenger.
Sydnie M. Messner, 17, Graham, was pronounced dead at the scene
Willtrout was transported to Heartland Regional Medical Center.
Two additional passengers in the vehicle Ashley L. Scott, 17, Maitland, and Dalton M. Hall, 17, Maryville, were transported to St. Francis Medical Center.
The MSHP reported they were not wearing seat belts.
I’m a farmer and a mother. Leaving my farm and family isn’t exactly something I treasure. It is, however, an investment I make to share the story of my American farm family. I am not alone in this mission. As one of the Faces of Farming and Ranching for the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, I introduce people to what farmers do and why. This is not as simple as you might think.
Truth is: it’s rare to find people who have a solid understanding of what farming looks like today. With most Americans at least three or four generations removed from the farm, few have connections with the people who bring food to their tables.
Thanks to USFRA’s Faces of Farming, I now connect with people far outside of agriculture and on a broader scale than I once did through my blog and social media platforms.
I recently met with reporters along the Northeast corridor to discuss issues that are important in both rural and urban America. The use of antibiotics on farms and ranches was a recurring theme. But as I told them, antibiotics are just one of the many tools we have to responsibly care for our animals. Veterinarians and animal nutritionists play a key role in determining our animal care plan. Every decision we make regarding animal health is made under their guidance. Farmers and ranchers are always looking for ways to improve the care we give our animals.
Bloggers talk to each other a lot, but meeting face-to-face often brings the most benefits. I’ve gotten to know many urban bloggers and have discovered we have more in common than we would have expected. We all struggle to find interesting topics to write about, and we all have hectic schedules that prevent us from blogging as often as we’d like. Most importantly, we all want to feed our families healthy and nutritious food.
Many urban bloggers tell me I’m the first farmer they’ve met. I enjoy telling them about family life and business challenges on the farm, but I’ve learned just as much about the rest of America from them. Conversations like these help shape my story for people who have never visited a farm, so I can better explain what daily farm life looks like, including methods we use to grow food.
I remember joining a food discussion panel with Bo Stone – another one of the Faces of Farming– along with a chef for an international hotel chain and an independent hotel and restaurant owner. Bo and I shared our stories about the crops we grow and animals we raise on our farms. We explained why we do certain things to produce food and how our farms have changed over the last 50 years. This was also a great learning opportunity for us as farmers to hear about what goes into the decision-making process when chefs and restaurant owners buy food for their menus.
Through USFRA and other programs, farmers are sharing their stories like never before. Our platform for engagement has been elevated. I am finding that our fellow citizens, our friends and neighbors are receptive to learn how much we care for the land, animals and environment. They need to know that all these things we care for are in good hands. Agriculture must stand united in telling its story, but the story must be told in the genuine voices of individual farmers. USFRA’s Faces of Farming gives us that chance. I look forward to hearing more stories from those who follow in lending their unique voices and the credibility that only comes from a life on the land.
Chris Chinn, of Clarence, Mo., serves on the state board of directors for Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization. She is also a “Faces of Farming and Ranching” spokesperson for the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.
Dr. Robert Moser, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, speaks with Rhian Denning, a community action team coordinator with the Sedgwick County Health Department. They attended Thursday’s Kansas Health Summit on Breastfeeding in Wichita-Photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
WICHITA — Three years ago, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of hospitals’ efforts to encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies ranked Kansas 42st in the nation.
“We have a lot of room for improvement,” Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Dr. Robert Moser said Thursday, addressing a gathering of nearly 200 front-line physicians and nurses, public health officials nurses and health care advocates.
Thursday’s event, called the Kansas Health Summit on Breastfeeding, marked the start of a foundation-funded campaign aimed at improving the state’s breastfeeding rates, which, according to the CDC, are 40 percent at six months and 23 percent at 12 months after birth. Only 11 percent of the state’s mothers are thought to be breastfeeding “exclusively” after six months. All three percentages are below the national average.
“We’re here to build a blueprint for how to change the culture in Kansas so that more moms and babies have the opportunity to breastfeed,” said Virginia Elliott, vice president for programs at the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund, a co-sponsor of the event with the Kansas Health Foundation, which is the primary funder of the Kansas Health Institute, the parent organization of KHI News Service.
“We know (breastfeeding) is the healthy choice, but it’s just not the easy choice in this culture,” Elliott said. “Our breastfeeding rates show the barriers that moms and families are facing.”
These barriers, Elliott, Moser and others said, include:
• a long-standing underestimation of the health benefits associated with breastfeeding.
• a shortage of readily available breastfeeding counselors.
• hospital maternity wards that adhere to outdated care regimens.
• health insurance policies that are overly restrictive.
• easy access to formula.
• formula companies’ marketing campaigns.
• reluctance to breastfeed in public.
• unfriendly work environments.
“We have a lot of industry in McPherson, and it can be difficult for mothers to step off a 12-hour shift (production) line to go pump” breast milk, said Dr. Alicia Chennell, who has delivered 23 babies since moving to McPherson in mid-July.
“The health benefits of breastfeeding are extraordinary for mom and for baby,” Chennell said. “(Breastfed) babies will have fewer infections, fewer incidents of diabetes, less asthma, less obesity … and for moms there’s less cancer and less diabetes. It also helps with maternal weight loss after delivery, which is always fantastic, and the bond that breastfeeding builds between mom and baby is pretty fantastic too.”
The event’s keynote speaker, Dr. Todd Wolynn, a pediatrician and CEO at the National Breastfeeding Center in Pittsburgh, stressed the importance of helping business leaders recognize the economic benefits of breastfeeding. He noted that studies have shown that breastfeeding mothers are less likely to miss work due to having to stay home to care for a sick child.
“Dollars evoke change,” he said.
Wolynn also encouraged attendees to be ever-alert to formula companies’ marketing efforts. “I’m not here to demonize the industry,” he said. “But let’s remember: Every mother who isn’t breastfeeding is an industry client.”
Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger said the Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to cover breastfeeding supplies and access to counseling before and after delivery.
“The problem we have is that this is considered preventive care, but HHS hasn’t been very specific in defining what qualifies as preventive care,” she said “So the insurance companies may have polices that say where you have to buy – or rent – a breast pump, or tell you what brand, or require you to have a prescription. It’s not very standardized.”
During the morning’s question-and-answer sessions, three comments from audience members prompted brief applause. The comments called attention to:
• How KanCare companies’ policies undercut access to breastfeeding supports for low-income women.
• How OB/GYNs could – and should – do more to encourage breastfeeding.
• The success of a Wichita program geared toward young mothers who are still in high school.
Afterward, many in the audience toured the maternity unit at Wesley Medical Center, which is in the final stages of becoming the state’s first hospital to earn a “Baby Friendly” designation.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The rapidly rising demand for locally grown fruits and vegetables has created a robust new market for refugees who fled violence in their home countries and found peace in farming small plots of land in several U.S. cities.
With help from a federal grant program, Lutheran Services in Iowa provides farm plots for 26 refugee families in Des Moines who are now harvesting their own produce and selling it to cooperatives and at a farmers market.
Ron Munia, who works for the federal Office of Refugee Services, says federal grants have been given to 11 refugee farm programs.
He says farming helps the refugees feel at home and integrate into a community because of the interaction with the local population and other refugees.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is expressing concerns about the Islamic State group militants as he makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan.
Nixon is part of a delegation of four U.S. governors who traveled to Afghanistan over the weekend to receive counterterrorism briefings and greet troops. During a conference call Sunday with reporters, Nixon said the war on terror is becoming the “new normal.”
He says the situation in Afghanistan is improving, noting the country’s election of a new president and a soon-to-be-signed security agreement. But he says the expansion of terrorist groups into other areas is “sobering” and casting a shadow over the improvements. He said the situation pointed out continued responsibilities to “protect America and our way of life.”
The U.S. Department of Defense sponsored the trip.
———–
NEW YORK – Four U.S. governors are in Afghanistan as part of a delegation to receive counterterrorism briefings and to greet troops stationed there. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office says he’s in country with Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon at the invitation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Brown’s parents say they are unmoved by the Ferguson, Missouri, police chief’s apology in their son’s shooting death by a police officer.
Instead, Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr. said in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday they would rather see an arrest, and Brown Sr. said he wants the police officer “in handcuffs.”
Their unarmed 18-year-old son, who was black, was fatally shot last month by Darren Wilson, who is white.
Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson offered an apology (Watch Below) for Brown’s body lying in the street for more than four hours. McSpadden said “yes” when asked whether Jackson should be fired.
The parents also expressed anger at Ferguson police who wore bracelets expressing support for Wilson. McSpadden says that lets her know “how they feel.”
OLATHE — Johnson County announced that Tim DeWeese, a longtime staff member of the Johnson County Mental Health Center, will be its new director.
For nearly two years, DeWeese has served as director of clinical services, overseeing the center’s largest operating division. He also served as the center’s director of community support services and as a crisis case-management team leader.
He previously worked at the Guidance Center in Leavenworth and Comprehensive Mental Health Services in Independence, Mo.
DeWeese replaces Maureen Womack, who resigned late last year amid turmoil about the center’s finances and its general operation.
An outside review team recommended revamping of the board’s leadership structure and included two dozen recommendations for county officials to consider.
“Tim has been instrumental in assisting with navigating (the center) through the aftermath of the past executive director’s resignation, in conducting a thorough review of the organization’s programs and services, and beginning our transition back to programmatic and financial stability,” Assistant County Manager Maury Thompson said in a news release Thursday.
“Our employees have persevered through a challenging period,” DeWeese said in the release. “These challenges will assist us in making needed changes, resulting in an organization positioned for a bright future.”
