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From the Los Angeles Times

Whooping cough diagnoses lagged in eight California deaths, analysis shows

All eight of the infants who have died in the current epidemic had been taken to clinics and hospitals multiple times before an accurate diagnosis was made, a state review shows.

By Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times

September 7, 2010

A disturbing theme has emerged in an analysis of all eight cases of California infants who died from whooping cough this year: Despite the patients' multiple visits to clinics and hospitals, doctors typically failed to make a swift, accurate diagnosis.

"In several cases … the infants were treated only for nasal congestion or mild upper respiratory infection," Dr. John Talarico, an immunization official with the California Department of Public Health, wrote in a recent letter to healthcare providers statewide. "By the time these infants developed severe respiratory distress, it was usually too late for any intervention to prevent their tragic deaths."

Because whooping cough, also known as pertussis, can be hard to diagnose, health officials urged physicians to suspect the bacterial disease in any infant under 6 months of age who is having trouble breathing.

"Infants presenting with a history of respiratory difficulty should be evaluated and treated for pertussis until proven otherwise during the pertussis epidemic," Talarico warned. Initial symptoms of the bacterial disease in infants are deceptively mild and can lull physicians into a false sense of security.

"It's a tough diagnosis because the babies, they don't look very sick. They don't have a fever. And they have a runny nose and a little cough," said Dr. James D. Cherry, a UCLA pediatrics professor and an expert on pertussis who has reviewed the eight infant deaths.

"All of those should've been diagnosed earlier. And a couple of them, even after they were diagnosed, the [healthcare providers] didn't take it as serious enough, quick enough," Cherry said. Delayed hospitalization contributed to fatal outcomes, he said.

Cherry said physicians who suspect whooping cough should order lab tests to confirm the diagnosis. Because infants can deteriorate rapidly, Cherry advised physicians to strongly consider hospitalizing them in a major medical center with access to an intensive care unit.

A quick diagnosis can lead to treatment with antibiotics, which can keep the patient from becoming gravely ill.

With children returning to classrooms this week, whooping cough is showing no sign of letting up in California.

"It's still on the upswing, and I think it's going to be accentuated with schools opening," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of the Department of Public Health for Los Angeles County. "There is going to be increased opportunity for infection."

California is in its worst year of whooping cough since 1958, with 3,600 cases reported so far this year – a seven-fold increase from the same period last year.

Put another way, it is the nastiest season since pertussis rates began a sharp decline, falling in the 1940s and 1950s after widespread inoculation efforts began.

Of the eight infants who have died, all were younger than 3 months old. Four of them died in Los Angeles County. Whites have been hit hardest by the disease overall, but among infants younger than 6 months old, Latinos suffered the highest rate of illness.

Infants are at the highest risk of complications and death because their immune systems are weak and they are too young to have completed the first set of inoculations.

Health officers in Los Angeles and San Francisco are warning that if the bacterial disease spreads in schools, unimmunized children might be barred from attending classes until the outbreak is over.

The warning has caused unhappiness among some parents philosophically opposed to vaccinating their children.

"I will be so sad if this goes through and our district follows suit and [my child] is excluded from her first weeks of school," a person with the username EVC wrote on a message board on mothering.com. "It seems so unfair to me .... if [my child] is healthy (which I hope she will be), why should she be excluded?"

The reason, according to health officials, is that the child could become seriously ill and infect others.

Cherry emphasized that infants are commonly infected by family members, such as the mother, father and older siblings who haven't been properly diagnosed.

"Doctors who care for adults should definitely be more suspicious of this," Cherry said.

Fielding said that as school resumes, parents should keep sick children home and teachers should be alert about the spread of illness in the classroom.

Because immunity to the disease can begin to fade five years after illness or inoculation, officials urged people to make sure their pertussis vaccinations and their children's are up to date.

In July, California health officials expanded their recommendations for who should get a Tdap pertussis booster shot, to include anyone 7 years old or older who is not fully immunized, the elderly, and especially pregnant women and anyone who has contact with them or with infants.

"I would think — in the presence of an immediate danger to health — that people would go and get immunized," Fielding said.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-whooping-cough-20100907,0,1054482,print.story

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Iran has enough fuel for 2 nuclear warheads, report says

The International Atomic Energy Agency also reports that Tehran's efforts to master uranium enrichment at one facility could be slowing. Iran says it has 6,180 pounds of low-enriched uranium.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times

September 7, 2010

Reporting from Beirut

Iran has produced more than enough nuclear fuel to power two atomic warheads if it were to further enrich its supply and disregard its treaty obligations, according to a report issued Monday by the world's nuclear energy watchdog.

At the same time, Iran's controversial efforts to master the enrichment of uranium at its production facility near the town of Natanz could be slowing or stalling, according to the quarterly report, which International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano delivered to his governing board ahead of a meeting next week.

Iran is feeding uranium into only about 43% of its 8,700 centrifuges, slightly fewer than the last reporting period, which ended in June, the report says.

The report also indicates continuing friction between Tehran and international inspectors, who regularly visit Iran's nuclear facilities. In the wake of an argument this year over Iran's rejection of two particular IAEA employees, the report accuses the government of objecting to "inspectors with experience in Iran's nuclear fuel cycle and facilities."

Iran insists its nuclear program is meant for peaceful civilian purposes only. It is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which bars it from pursuing atomic weapons.

This month, Iran is launching a Russian-built nuclear reactor in the city of Bushehr. World powers suspect it is trying to obtain at least the capability to build nuclear weapons, which require uranium enriched to levels of 60% or higher — well above the purity level of the bulk of Iran's nuclear fuel supply.

Tehran's envoy to the Vienna-based IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said the report confirms that none of Iran's declared nuclear materials had been diverted for military uses and "clearly shows that the Islamic Republic of Iran had outstanding progress in regard with enrichment and is continuing its activities with the highest standards," according to Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency.

Iran told the IAEA that it had produced 6,180 pounds of low-enriched uranium at its fuel production facility near Natanz, up 15% from the last reporting period. Most experts say about 2,600 pounds of low-enriched uranium can be used to produce enough highly enriched material for a nuclear bomb that could be fitted onto a ballistic missile warhead.

In addition, Iran told the watchdog agency that it had produced nearly 50 pounds of 20% enriched uranium for a Tehran medical reactor that is running out of fuel. Weapons inspectors worry that the effort, which Iran initiated after the failure of talks to swap its own fuel for medical reactor plates abroad, could bolster the nation's nuclear know-how.

The IAEA has demanded quicker and better access to Iran's nuclear facilities and plans, but Tehran says it is not legally bound to submit to the increased scrutiny required by a Nonproliferation Treaty amendment that it signed in 2003 but that its parliament never ratified.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nuclear-report-20100907,0,378363,print.story

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U.S. considers boosting funds for Mexico drug war, but holds cash back over rights

The U.S. government is considering substantially increasing funding for Mexico's drug war beyond the $1.4-billion Merida Initiative, Paul Richter reports from our Washington bureau. Citing an unnamed source in the White House, Richter reports that the Obama administration sees its joint anti-drug effort with Mexico as a top priority. 

At the same time, the administration separately announced that Mexico would receive $36 million in already-scheduled funds from the Merida Initiative but that another $26 million was being withheld until " additional progress can be made " on human rights issues in Mexico.

The State Department's report on Mexico was sent to Congress last week but has not been publicly released.

The administration wants Mexico to increase the authority of its National Human Rights Commission and for Mexican soldiers to be prosecuted on human rights charges in civilian courts rather than military tribunals. Soldiers and officers are rarely if ever convicted on such accusations in military courts, even as rights complaints have skyrocketed since President Felipe Calderon launched the army-led campaign against drug-trafficking groups in late 2006.

On Sunday, Mexican soldiers opened fire on a family's car at a highway checkpoint in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, killing a man and his teenage son and injuring five others. The Mexican army is implicated in the shooting deaths of two children in April. In March, a suspected drug gang member was photographed being hauled into the custody of marines one day, then showed up dead on a roadside the next.

Mexico's Interior Ministry said it would be paying the funeral expenses (link in Spanish) of Sunday's shooting victims, citing the military's "error" in the incident.

After last week's announcement about the withheld money, Mexico's Foreign Ministry responded with a measured critique . "Cooperation with the United States against transnational organized crime through the framework of the Merida Initiative is based on shared responsibility, mutual trust and respect for the jurisdiction of each country, not on unilateral plans for evaluating and conditions unacceptable to the government of Mexico," the statement said.

Meanwhile, as promised last year, the governments of the U.S. and Mexico opened a joint office -- the Merida Initiative Bilateral Implementation Office -- in Mexico City. Merida is a three-year program approved by the George W. Bush administration that designates $1.6 billion to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, with the lion's share, $1.4 billion, earmarked for Mexico.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/09/merida-initiative-military-human-rights-killing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

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Obama seeks $50 billion in transportation spending to create jobs

The president says the plan would put construction workers back on the job without adding to the deficit. Republicans say it's more unnecessary spending.

By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau

September 6, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday called for a $50-billion surge in spending on the nation's roads, runways and railroads, his latest effort to respond to the stubbornly sluggish economy in a political climate turning against his party.

Speaking at a union-organized rally in Milwaukee, the president said his proposal would put construction workers back to work and rebuild deteriorating infrastructure.

"It's a plan that says, even in the aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can still shape our own destiny, we can still move this country forward, we can still leave our children something better — something that lasts," the president said, in a campaign-style speech that sought to make the case for his economic policies.

The Labor Day speech came as Democratic candidates were launching the final leg of their campaigns and, in many cases, facing a harsh assessment from voters frustrated by the pace of economic recovery. Polls show voters feel uneasy about the economy, unhappy with the rising deficits and willing to give Republican policies a try.

The White House will use this week to show it is reacting to that climate. The infrastructure plan was slated to be the first in a series of proposals unveiled by the president, although experts have cast doubt on whether the administration can do much to improved the job market before November.

Senior administration officials on Monday declined to make predictions about how many job could be created by the infrastructure plan. They said only that they expected results next year.

They resisted describing the $50-billion proposal as a stimulus measure, instead casting it as part of a six-year transportation plan to be put before Congress in the fall. The bill would be "front-loaded" to spend money quickly in hopes of creating jobs in the short term, they said.

The officials declined to put a dollar figure on the total amount of new spending in the transportation proposal, saying only that the $50 billion would be a significant percentage of the overall increase. The White House hoped to cover the costs by closing a series of tax breaks for oil and gas companies, they said.

"This is a plan that will be fully paid for and will not add to the deficit over time," Obama said. "We're going to work with Congress to see to that."

Still, it is unclear whether Congress will have the appetite for another major spending bill. Congressional Democrats have spent much of this campaign season defending themselves against Republican charges of wasteful and unnecessary spending that has ballooned the deficit with few results. An $814-billion stimulus package passed last year has not proven to be popular, particularly with independent and fiscally conservative voters.

On Monday, Republican Whip Eric Cantor quickly sought to label Obama's plan as more of the same.

"Today the president will use the Labor Day holiday as the launching pad for yet another government stimulus effort, another play called from the same failed Keynesian playbook," Cantor said in a statement released before Obama announced his plan in Milwaukee. "More government stimulus does nothing to end this cloud of uncertainty."

The $50-billion plan outlined Monday amounted to roughly half of what was allocated to infrastructure in last year's stimulus package. Officials said the proposal project would build on the work already begun.

The initial spending would be used to build or repair 150,000 miles of road, 4,000 miles of railways and 150 miles of airport runways, as well as to support a modernization of the air-traffic-control system.

The president also planned to call for the creation of an infrastructure bank that would leverage funding for projects that reached a regional or national scale. Over the next several years, the plan would continue funding for high-speed rail, consolidating more than 100 small programs, and prioritize investments in projects that lower greenhouse-gas admissions and reduce oil consumption.

The plan was proposed as the unemployment rate stood at 9.6% and the economy continued to lose jobs, according to a Labor Department report issued last week.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/sc-dc-obama-economy-20100906,0,2694042,print.story

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From the New York Times

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At Hospitals, New Methods With a Focus on Diversity

At Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, a borough that is home to 2.3 million people from more than 100 countries, lactation consultants spend extra time explaining to Bangladeshi women that the yellow breast milk they produce right after birth is not dirty.

Female obstetricians are always on duty overnight at the hospital's maternity ward in case a Muslim woman arrives in labor and does not want to be treated by a male doctor.

At the diabetes nutrition classes, where participants are mostly from Latin America, diet plans incorporate items like guava paste, plantains and chayote squash.

Ruth Rooney, a registered nurse who has been running the classes for 15 years, said she had struggled to figure out why blood sugar levels among her Latino patients remained so high. So one day she asked them to bring in samples of the foods they ate at home.

“I realized I had been telling them to avoid white bread,” Ms. Rooney said, “but I never mentioned tortillas, which is really a staple of their diet.”

As more immigrants crowd its waiting rooms, Elmhurst Hospital is joining a growing number of hospitals in New York and across the country that are going beyond hiring interpreters and offering translated paperwork and are adopting practices intended to improve care for an increasingly diverse patient population.

Doctors and nurses are interviewing religious leaders, visiting cultural centers and even traveling abroad to better understand their patients.

The lessons are redefining traditional notions of health care not just in immigrant hubs like New York, California and Texas, but also in places like Storm Lake, Iowa, a city of 12,000 that has been transformed by an influx of Hispanics who work in the area's meatpacking plants.

“We can't just say, ‘You're different,' call an interpreter and consider our job done,” said Candi Castleberry-Singleton, chief diversity officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which operates 15 hospitals and clinics throughout Pennsylvania. “What we have to say is, whatever cultural beliefs you have, they're going to be acknowledged and respected.”

At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, Calif., shamans tend to the spiritual needs of the hospital's many Hmong patients. Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston has a floor devoted to Asian patients, where the menu offers a selection of Chinese and Vietnamese comfort food, like chicken congee soup and steamed dumplings.

In Harlem, the Medina Clinic opened in May 2009 inside Harlem Hospital Center to cater to the many West African immigrants arriving in the neighborhood. Since many immigrants are devout Muslims, the clinic provides a prayer space. Medical appointments can last an hour or more because many patients with limited or no access to health care in their home countries often have chronic illnesses, like heart disease or diabetes, said Dr. John M. Palmer, executive director of Harlem Hospital.

The doctors at the clinic have seen more than 700 patients since it opened, providing treatment and helping them navigate an unfamiliar and complex health care system. Patients with no insurance often miss follow-up appointments, believing they will be asked to pay for something they cannot afford.

“It takes them time to get the idea of pay scales and subsidized care,” Dr. Palmer said.

Finding ways to make immigrants feel more at ease is not just a good-faith effort at cultural sensitivity but can also translate into improved health outcomes, health care providers say. Patients who trust their doctors are less likely to end up in emergency rooms because they have waited too long to deal with an ailment. And the emotional difficulties often experienced by patients recovering from surgery or extended hospital stays can be made more palatable.

Some hospitals, for example, place no restrictions on visiting hours to accommodate the varied work schedules of many immigrants.

“One thing you don't learn in medical school is how to interpret cultural cues, but they're key when you're dealing with a diverse population,” said Dr. Braden Hexom, who works in the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital.

Todd Hudspeth, the chief executive of Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, which has the most diverse public school system in Iowa, knew he had a problem when he started getting complaints about his hospital from Mexican and Central American immigrants at a Spanish Mass he attended a few years ago.

The hospital had no interpreters and no Spanish speakers on its staff, Mr. Hudspeth said.

So he took several doctors and nurses with him on a trip to Mexico in 2004 to learn about the health care system; some of the hospital's doctors have made repeated visits. The hospital also created a training program that covers attitudes among people from Mexico and Central America toward issues like birth, illness, dying and death.

“A lot of it is just raising people's awareness that not everybody does things the way we do in the Midwest,” Mr. Hudspeth said.

The accommodations hospitals make can be subtle but meaningful. At a hospital that is part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a Muslim woman admitted for gastric bypass surgery a few months ago was placed in a bed facing east so she would be in the proper direction during her daily prayers.

Mercy Medical Center in California has banished pens with red ink from patient rooms because some Hmong believe the color red is a sign that a person has been cursed, said Robert C. Streeter, vice president of medical affairs for the hospital.

In the neighborhoods surrounding Elmhurst Hospital, including Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst, 56 percent of the residents are foreign-born, according to the city's health department.

To better understand patient attitudes, lactation consultants at the hospital surveyed new mothers last year to figure out what women from different countries thought about breast-feeding . They asked, among other things, whether they knew the importance of their first milk, which is called colostrum, and if breast-feeding was promoted in their native country.

They found out that in Bangladesh colostrum is considered impure and is usually discarded and that Bangladeshi women had no idea that it is, in fact, highly nutritious. Chinese women planning to send their children to be raised their first few years by relatives in China, a common practice, will not breast-feed. And though breast-feeding is common in rural Mexico, Mexican women here are often eager to give their babies formula.

“They come across the border, they see bottles and they think, ‘That's American, that's the way to go.' It's kind of a status thing,” said Patricia de Lima, director of a breast-feeding initiative at Elmhurst.

The survey helped shape the way lactation consultants approach mothers from different countries. In much the same way, Ms. Rooney, the nurse who runs the diabetes classes, adjusted the diets of her immigrant patients after reviewing the food they ate at home.

Dr. Jasmin Moshirpur recalled how different it was when she started working at Elmhurst Hospital 40 years ago, as the sole female obstetrician-gynecologist on the staff.

The issue of treating immigrants goes well beyond the challenges posed by linguistic diversity, said Dr. Moshirpur, regional director of the Queens Health Network, which includes Elmhurst Hospital. The very notion of health differs depending on where a patient is from.

“A good part of the mentality is still to provide what our patients need,” she said. “Health needs come first, of course, but there's no question we can be better doctors if we're also mindful of patients' cultural needs.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/nyregion/07hospital.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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9 Years After 9/11, Public Safety Radio Not Ready

WASHINGTON — The inability of most firefighters and police officers to talk to each other on their radios on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center — one of the most vexing problems on that day nine years ago — still has not been completely resolved.

The problem, highlighted in the 9/11 Commission Report, was seen again in 2005 after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Public safety officers from different jurisdictions arrived at the scene of those disasters only to find that, unable to communicate with each other by radio, they had to resort to running handwritten notes between command centers.

Despite $7 billion in federal grants and other spending over the last seven years to improve the ability of public safety departments to talk to one another, most experts in such communications say that it will be years, if ever, before a single nationwide public safety radio system becomes a reality.

In the meantime, public safety and homeland security officials have patched together voice networks in some regions, including New York, that link commanders at various agencies. But the focus in Washington has turned to the development of the next generation of emergency communications, wireless broadband, which seeks to succeed where radio has failed.

Many of the issues that helped shape the current dysfunctional public safety radio networks threaten the creation of a uniform standard for wireless broadband communications.

“For a brief moment in time, a solution is readily within reach,” James A. Barnett Jr., chief of the Federal Communications Commission 's public safety and homeland security bureau, told a Congressional hearing this summer. “Unless we embark on a comprehensive plan now, including public funding, America will not be able to afford a nationwide, interoperable public safety network.”

Public safety groups, with the backing of some members of Congress, are arguing that they need to be given control of a larger chunk of broadband spectrum — the airwaves on which wireless devices communicate with each other — to ensure that they have adequate network capacity during emergencies.

Officials from the F.C.C. and other legislators disagree, saying that the best way to pay for and build a robust, affordable communications system is to auction some of the airwaves to commercial companies that can build a network and make it available to public safety agencies during an emergency.

That disagreement, and the associated Congressional inquiries and lobbying, have stalled development just as wireless phone companies are beginning to construct and deploy their fourth-generation, or 4G, networks.

Building public safety networks at the same time as the commercial wireless networks, and sharing towers and fiber optic cables would save $9 billion in construction costs and billions more over the lifetime of the network, the F.C.C. says.

Some public safety systems are already under way. Last month, the Commerce Department awarded $220 million to five regional efforts to build some of the first wireless broadband public safety systems. Among the awards was $50 million to Motorola to build a network in the San Francisco Bay area that would allow public safety officials from San Francisco, Oakland and surrounding counties to talk, transfer files and share video.

But those initial broadband systems are being built before the various parties have settled on the appropriate standards for equipment and networks — meaning that there is no guarantee that other jurisdictions that build their systems at some point in the future will be working on the same wavelength.

Because of the specialized nature of much of the equipment, the nation's 50,000 public safety agencies pay $2,500 to $5,000 a unit for the current generation of rugged, hand-held radios that allow different departments to talk to each other. Only mass production of uniform broadband equipment is likely to bring down the costs, officials say.

And while the Obama administration, Congress, the F.C.C. and public safety groups are seeking agreements on standards, turf battles and political posturing have crept into the debate.

“The history of public safety is one where the vendors have driven the requirements,” Deputy Chief Charles F. Dowd, who oversees the New York Police Department 's communications division, said in an interview. “We don't want that situation anymore. We want public safety to do the decision making. And since we're starting with a clean slate, we can develop rules that everybody has to play by.”

The Obama administration has been conducting meetings of a task force that includes representatives of the Homeland Security Department , the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, public safety agencies and telecommunications companies. At the end of September, the administration is to convene a public forum to share ideas.

Administration officials acknowledge it will take years to build a nationwide public safety system. “We're talking about an endeavor that will take 10 or so years to get completed,” said one official. “We're starting with a new generation of technology, and that gives us a much better chance to succeed than we had with the legacy systems.”

Complicating the debate is the demand by public safety officials that they control their own networks. At issue is a section of the airwaves created when television stations converted from analog to digital signals, freeing up additional space for other applications. A 10 megahertz band was set aside for public safety to build a wireless broadband network, as part of a 24 megahertz allocation. Congress also instructed the F.C.C. to auction off an additional 10 megahertz band that would include a network built to public safety specifications.

That auction, in 2008, failed to attract the minimum bid. The F.C.C. has proposed another auction with less onerous specifications, but it would still produce a commercial system on which public safety would have priority in case of an emergency.

Public safety officials — associations of police departments, fire chiefs, and other law enforcement and rescue agencies — oppose that plan, saying they need all 34 megahertz of the spectrum at issue to build a wireless broadband system that is theirs alone.

F.C.C. officials liken that scenario to building a separate highway for the use of police cars and firetrucks, rather than having the public pull over to the side of the road when a firetruck or ambulance needs to pass.

Police and fire officials are difficult constituents to oppose when they combine forces on Capitol Hill, and with the approach of the midterm elections, public safety trade groups have gained considerable support in Congress for their effort to secure the extra spectrum. Competing bipartisan bills have been introduced and will receive hearings starting this month.

Some Homeland Security officials fear that the debate over broadband is obscuring strides that have been made in linking voice systems, which will continue long into the future to be the dominant method of communication for public safety departments during emergencies. Meanwhile, the window to plan a next-generation broadband system is starting to close.

“There is nothing that is inevitable about having a nationwide, interoperable system,” Mr. Barnett told Congress this summer. “Indeed, the last 75 years of public safety communications teaches us that there are no natural or market forces” that will make it happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/07rescue.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Drew Peterson makes impassioned plea for kids  

September 7, 2010

BY MICHAEL SNEED Sun-Times Columnist

Drew Peterson is making an impassioned media plea on behalf of his children; specifically his son, Stephen, an Oak Brook policeman who is on suspension because of what Peterson claims is the result of “malicious prosecution.”

Drew Peterson, who is in jail awaiting trial on charges of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, dispatched a letter to his attorney Joel Brodsky urging the press to “watch over” what he considers vindictive legal proceedings against Stephen, the caregiver of four of Drew Peterson's six children.

Oak Brook Police are investigating Stephen Peterson's court testimony that he accepted guns from his father after Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, vanished in 2007.

The letter, which was given to Sneed by Brodsky, contains references to five of Drew Peterson's six children. Missing is a reference to Peterson's eldest child, Eric, the product of marriage to his first wife, Carol, and from whom he is estranged. (There were no children from Peterson's marriage to his second wife, Victoria.) Peterson is also a prime suspect in the disappearance of Stacy, the mother of his two youngest children, Anthony and Lacy Ann. The following is an edited version of Drew Peterson's letter, spelling and punctuation errors and all.

Its been almost three years since my wife Stacy went missing with the Illinois State Police and the Will County States Attorney's Office launching probably the largest, most obsessive and expensive investigation in U.S. history. The investigation has thus far turned up rumors, gossip hearsay and out right lies and more recently the bodies of a lot of raccoons and possums all at the expense of the hard working Illinois tax payer. This investigation has threatened, harassed, pestered and hounded just about every loved one, friend, family member, fellow employee and love interest I have ever know. . . . On several occasions my home and property have been searched and vandalized by these obsessive thugs with my little children being terrorized in the process. Our heroes. I was taken from my family without being able to say goodbye to my kids with my kids being also taken into custody and turned over to The Department of Children and family Services. This process would be scary for an adult much less a four and five year old. My 31 year old son Stephen, an Oak Brook Police Officer, stepped up and took custody of my four kids just after having a child of his own. My son Stephen is a good man and a dedicated father and policeman. Stephen got his Bachelors degree in law enforcement at Western Illinois University just so he could fulfill his dream of becoming a policeman. My little girl Lacy Ann just started Kindergarten with her daddy unable to be at her first day of school. Anthony is now in 2nd grade full of life and love just happy to be a kid with his friends. Thomas is now a senior, number one in his class, and now the Vice President of the National Honor Society. He is an athlete and plays trumpet in his school and area church bands. Kristopher is also an athlete and an honor roll student now in his Junior year of high school. All my children are exceptional kids just wanting a happy childhood after their little worlds were turned upside down almost three years ago. It's not bad enough their father is in jail being held unlawfully after the state appealed a Will County Judges decision to not allow bad evidence at trial, but now my children's well being and security is now in jeopardy again. For the third time, in less than three years, my son Stephen is again being brought up on departmental charges of misconduct by Oak Brook Chief Sheehan stemming from trumped up gun charges I'm now facing in a Will County Court. The charges Stephen faced in the past were brought when he took a squad car to a Will County grand Jury while on duty under supeona for the case against me. The second charge was for the use of the departmental computer which were said to be unauthorized. Nothing could be more ridiculous. . . . I have no doubt that the Illinois State Police and the Will County States Attorney's Office are also involved in this action against my son in an attempt to get at me. . . . During a prior action against my son Chief Sheehan referred to Stephen as “Drew” at least three times during the hearing so we know where his head is. . . . I'm not looking for any sympathy for me. I can handle myself. But I am asking the media to closely watch over these proceedings to help protect my son Stephen, being my children's caregiver, against the malicious prosecution he is now facing. What will it take to stop the madness being perpetrated against my family in an attempt to get at me. . . . Someone somewhere has to stand up and say STOP. . . . If I gave my life, which I would gladly do to protect my kids, would that stop the harassment against my family? . . . I'm devoting all my resources that I have available to fight this atrocity against my son.

-- Drew Peterson

RELATED STORIES Full text of Drew Peterson's letter

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/2680542,drew-peterson-letter-children-090610.article

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Chicago schools have 'new eyes and ears on the street'

Community watchers offer safe passage to CPS students  

September 7, 2010

BY ROSALIND ROSSI - Education Reporter

Wearing neon yellow vests and packing cell phones, more than a dozen "community watchers'' will line the busiest street leading to Corliss High School for a mile today as a new Safe Passage program sweeps across the city's public high schools.

These new "eyes and ears on the street" already have made some kids feel safer at Corliss, a year-round school that launched its Safe Passage program in early August when its classes began.

"People are not going to do anything when they see adults around,'' Corliss junior Louise Bohannon, 17, said last week. "We have somebody now to watch us.''

After the tensest budget season in years, Chicago Public Schools throw open their doors for the start of the traditional school year today with more kids than last year, fewer teachers, longer bus rides, but, around some schools like Corliss, more security.

With massive systemwide cost- cutting, the Safe Passage program is one of the few CPS efforts to expand -- from the $2 million originally envisioned for this school year to $8 million, and from the 13 high schools once planned to 23 schools by October.

Not all kids are convinced the 20 community watchers around Corliss High School, at 103rd and Corliss, will make a difference.

"They can't jump in front of any bullets,'' said one 16-year-old Corliss junior.

But Principal Anthony Spivey thinks the program already has had an impact.

On Aug. 11, Spivey said, an alert Corliss community watcher spotted a group of gang members, including some Corliss students, gathering at a park and alerted the principal and police. Spivey and security officers went to the park, averting trouble. They learned the group apparently was headed for another gang positioned at a gas station.

Officials later determined that the first group was intent on retaliating against the second for a gang shooting the day before that inadvertently claimed the life of 8-year-old Tanaja Stokes as she jumped rope with her cousin.

"If the community watchers had not been out here, we'd have been on the inside, not knowing what was going on outside,'' Spivey said.

The Safe Passage program is one prong of a three-part anti-violence plan designed to reduce student shootings that have plagued CPS in recent years. Budget-tightening shrank the overall $60 million, two-year effort to a $40 million one, but the Safe Passage part grew, as police and school officials identified more troublesome school passage ways, said CPS Safety and Security Chief Michael Shields.

Dozens of community groups vied for the chance to produce and train community watchers. At Corliss, the Nehemiah Coalition joined forces with Roseland Ceasefire to produce 20 community watchers who were given three days of training, including briefings on gang symbols and colors.

Their tools? Neon yellow vests so kids would be sure to see them, and cell phones with global positioning systems that they use to call in trouble -- and that their supervisors can use to locate them.

As Corliss kids walked down busy 103rd Street to school last week, yellow vests punctuated their route at street corners, bus stops, gas stations and abandoned stores.

The mere and obvious presence of community watchers functions as a deterrent, because kids don't want to create trouble while "witnesses'' are around, said Bob Jackson of Roseland Ceasefire.

But watchers say they also have alerted officials to rumblings about guns, fights and retaliation plans. And they have broken up verbal altercations that could have escalated into physical ones.

Some watchers recently stopped some gun-toting teens from heading toward Corliss, Jackson said.

"These people had just shot a dog dead in a yard, so you don't know what they were going to do by the time they got to Corliss,'' Jackson said. "The community watchers are not just standing around.''

The program also is providing jobs -- at the rate of $8.50 to $10 an hour -- to adults waylaid by tough economic times. It gave Troy McDaniels a job after he was laid off as an online university admissions adviser -- as well as a new way to reach kids and help the community.

"It's an excellent program that helps kids stay safe in their neighborhood,'' McDaniels said. "We're another eye in the sky helping the Chicago Police Department.''

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/2681032,CST-NWS-open07.article

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Why almost everyone needs a flu shot this year

BY MONIFA THOMAS

Flu season is around the corner. Here are answers to your questions about this year's flu vaccine:

Q. The H1N1 pandemic appears to be over. Why should I get a flu shot this year?

A. Immunity provided by the flu vaccine lasts about eight months, so even if you got vaccinated last year, it's important to get this year's vaccine. Also, there is a new strain of the H3N2 flu virus that has not been included in previous flu shots. This strain has been linked to two recent flu outbreaks in Iowa.

Q. How many shots do I need this year?

A. The seasonal flu vaccine provides protection against the H1N1 virus and two other flu strains, so only one vaccine is needed. Groups that will need two separate doses include children under age 9 receiving their first-ever flu vaccine and children younger than 9 who received their first-ever seasonal flu vaccine last year, but only got one dose, according to guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Q. For the first time, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending flu vaccination for all Americans over the age of 6 months. Why the change?

A. Flu vaccination was already recommended for 85 percent of the U.S. population, but the CDC expanded that to almost everyone based on evidence that vaccination can benefit people of all ages. "We've been moving in that direction for a number of years," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner says. Health officials were also concerned that the 2009 H1N1 virus would continue circulating during this flu season and that "a substantial proportion of young adults might remain susceptible to infection," according to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Exceptions include people with egg allergies, people who have had a severe reaction to a flu vaccine in the past and infants younger than six months.

Q. The flu vaccine is made using chicken eggs. Should I be concerned about salmonella in the vaccine after the massive egg recall?

A. No. Eggs used for vaccine production don't come from the same farms as eggs used for food, and they're rigorously inspected for pathogens.

Q. If I'm over 65, should I be getting the new high-dose flu vaccine?

A. It's your choice. The vaccine, made by Sanofi Pasteur, contains four times the dosage of a standard flu vaccine and is designed for people over 65, whose immune systems don't respond as well to a flu shot. Until more research has been done to prove the new vaccine is more effective than the regular one, the CDC says it's OK to choose either.

Q. When will the vaccine become available?

A. It already is. Some manufacturers started shipping out this year's vaccine supply early, so many retailers, including Walgreens, Target and CVS, have flu shots available. The vaccine is also starting to arrive at local health departments across the state, the Illinois Department of Public Health says.

Q. The CDC just lowered its estimate of how many people die of flu each year. Doesn't that prove concern about flu is overblown?

A. No. Though the CDC now says flu kills an average 24,000 Americans each year instead of 36,000, there's plenty of fluctuation from year to year, and it's hard to predict how bad a flu season will be in advance. Over the last 30 years, flu-related deaths in the United States have ranged from about 3,300 to a high of about 49,000. "Even in a mild year, we could see thousands of people dying from flu or tens of thousands of people being hospitalized," Skinner says.

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/2680820,CST-NWS-health07.article

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