dsnodgrass

Cross-posted from DK GreenRoots.

Leading organic watchdog the Cornucopia Institute has registered a formal complaint with the USDA against retail behemoth Target for falsely representing Silk brand soymilk as organic in newspaper advertisements. The allegation states the following (pdf):

Specifically, Target Corporation advertised Silk soymilk in newspapers with the term “organic” pictured on the carton’s label, when in fact the product’s manufacturer, Dean Foods’ WhiteWave division, has been sourcing this product line with conventional soybeans. The newspaper ads potentially reached millions of consumers in the Midwest, and possibly nationwide, with the false representation.

This is not the first time Target has been accused of organic mislabeling. They were named in a 2007 class-action suit for selling conventional milk in Archer Farms cartons which bore the seal of organic certification. That lawsuit is currently pending and both Target and Aurora, who were the producers of the Archer Farms milk, dispute this allegation.

In the area of Target’s recent newspaper ads, it appears that officials at Cornucopia are choosing a relatively non-cynical approach when it comes todiscussing intent.

“Either this was a willful attempt to deceive customers and defraud them or more likely incompetence and lack of oversight by management,” said Mark Kastel, an analyst for the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute. “I would guess this was done in error. It is hard to believe that people at this company were stupid enough to think they could get away with this.”

[...]

Kastel said Target’s actions amount to creating an “organic light” product in the marketplace. “Major food processors have recognized the meteoric rise of the organic industry — and profit potential,” he said.

Joan Shaffer, a spokeswoman for the USDA’s National Organic Program in Washington, D.C., said the Cornucopia Institute’s complaint will be reviewed to determine what the next step should be. “If it warrants an investigation, we will do an investigation,” she said.

Target could be fined for a “willful violation” of organic certification regulations, Shaffer said.
In the past year, the USDA’s organic program has received 160 complaints alleging bogus organic products, she said.

Whether through incompetence or perceived opportunity, there is no shortage of opportunity for consumer confusion when it comes to organic marketing. Cornucopia has previously encountered a somewhat similar issue with Wal-Mart.

This is not the first time The Cornucopia Institute has found that specialty retailers, like the nation’s approximately 275 co-op grocers, have faced unethical competition from big-box chains. After the group filed complaints with federal and state regulators against Wal-Mart in 2006, also alleging misrepresention of conventional food as organic with improper signage in their stores, the nation’s largest retailer signed consent agreements with the USDA and the state of Wisconsin committing to change their practices.

“Wal-Mart did indeed clean up its act, as we expect Target to do, but it should not take the judicious oversight of an industry watchdog to cause these giant corporations to comply with the law, said Will Fantle, research director for the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia. “One of the reasons these companies can undercut other retailers is they do not invest in the kind of management expertise necessary to prevent problems of this nature from occurring.”

The Wal-Mart complaint, which I had previously written about, involved in-store signage. Some of the signage in question is pictured below. The photos were provided by the Cornucopia Institute and are reproduced here with their permission.

A 2006 study from the Harvard School of Public Health estimated the cumulative lifetime cost of caring for a person with autism to be $3.2 million, and $35 billion for the annual cost of care for all people with autism. These figures include direct and indirect associated medical costs, yet the author of the study believes that these figures may actually be an underestimation due to the difficulties in gathering accurate data for other out-of-pocket expenses, including alternative therapies.

Now throw this into the mix.

New research suggests that the average household with children with autism not only spends thousands of dollars toward educational, behavioral and health care expenses each year, but also suffers from a lesser-known cost that hits them up front – a sizeable chunk of missed household income, perhaps as much as $6,200 annually.

The study, published in April’s edition of Pediatrics, paints a more detailed financial picture of how expensive life can become for parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder.

“To our knowledge, this is the first U.S. study that examines this front half of the ‘money in, money out’ equation,” said economist Guillermo Montes, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a senior researcher at the Children’s Institute, a not-for-profit organization affiliated with the University of Rochester, where he also serves as a faculty member in the division of General Pediatrics. “To collect data on expenses is fairly straightforward– it’s a survey report. But projecting earning potential and then stacking that against actual income requires complex statistical modeling.”

[...]

“We were able to forecast within $80 of what these households, on average, were actually earning,” Montes said.

It’s not exactly shocking that insurance companies would balk at covering treatments typically associated with autism spectrum disorders. Some of the most common treatments are Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Occupational Therapy, Sensory Integration Therapy (frequently part of the Occupational Therapy domain), Speech Therapy and Physical Therapy, though with such a broad range of individual needs, these can vary significantly.

ABA

Behavior Analysis is the scientific study of behavior. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the application of the principles of learning and motivation from Behavior Analysis, and the procedures and technology derived from those principles, to the solution of problems of social significance. Many decades of research have validated treatments based on ABA.

[...]

ABA is an objective discipline. ABA focuses on the reliable measurement and objective
evaluation of observable behavior.

Reliable measurement requires that behaviors are defined objectively. Vague terms such as anger, depression, aggression or tantrums are redefined in observable and quantifiable terms, so their frequency, duration or other measurable properties can be directly recorded (Sulzer-Azaroff & Mayer, 1991). For example, a goal to reduce a child’s aggressive behavior might define “aggression” as: “attempts, episodes or occurrences (each separated by 10 seconds) of biting, scratching, pinching or pulling hair.” “Initiating social interaction with peers” might be defined as: “looking at classmate and verbalizing an appropriate greeting.”

ABA interventions require a demonstration of the events that are responsible for the occurrence, or non-occurrence, of behavior. ABA uses methods of analysis that yield convincing, reproducible, and conceptually sensible demonstrations of how to accomplish specific behavior changes (Baer & Risley, 1987). Moreover, these behaviors are evaluated within relevant settings such as schools, homes and the community. The use of single case experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of individualized interventions is an essential component of programs based upon ABA methodologies…

Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy can benefit a person with autism by attempting to improve the quality of life for the individual. The aim is to maintain, improve, or introduce skills that allow an individual to participate as independently as possible in meaningful life activities. Coping skills, fine motor skills, play skills, self help skills, and socialization are all targeted areas to be addressed.

Through occupational therapy methods, a person with autism can be aided both at home and within the school setting by teaching activities including dressing, feeding, toilet training, grooming, social skills, fine motor and visual skills that assist in writing and scissor use, gross motor coordination to help the individual ride a bike or walk properly, and visual perceptual skills needed for reading and writing.

Sensory Integration Therapy

One of the main difficulties autistic children face is how they perceive the environment. Oftentimes, their sensory impulses are contradictory to what is expected by society. Autistic children often have severe difficulty managing their sensory perceptions and a host of seemingly self-destructive behaviors or actions that are perceived to be senseless is the result. Autistic people sometimes cannot perceive their own physicality and must resort to these behaviors to “feel” something. For instance, some autistic children may bang their head against a wall or spin around in circles. Others have been known to self harm or crash into objects. These behaviors are the direct result of sensory integration impairment.

The process of sensory integration therapy seeks to mitigate these behaviors by teaching how to incorporate information gathered through the senses: smell, taste, touch, hearing, and vision, and combine these stimuli with what is already know to produce proper responses. As with levels of severity of autism, there are also different levels in which autistic children experience sensory integration dysfunction (SID). These levels range from mild to severe and can either manifest in a lack of sensitivity to the environment or a constant state of over-sensitivity.

Sensory integration therapy seeks to teach the nervous system how to process stimuli in a normalized fashion. A. Jean Ayers, Ph.D., was the first to research the process known as sensory integration therapy. She built the foundation of the therapy that has been instrumental in helping autistic children all over the world. Using a variety of sensory and motor exercises for the central nervous system it is actually possible to teach the brain how to accomplish this. Typically, an occupational therapist or physical therapist is the professional that practices sensory integration therapy.

Using various techniques it is possible to improve concentration, listening skills, physical balance, motor functioning, and impulse control in autistic children. While it is not successful in 100% of cases, sensory integration therapy has been shown to be a valuable tool for helping those with autism cope with their environment and lead a better, more adjusted life. Each autistic child has different symptoms and it is necessary to devise a plan for each individual when initiating sensory integration therapy.

Speech Therapy

What are the common speech and communication problems with autism?
Autism can affect speech, language development, and social communication in many ways.

Speech problems. A person with autism may:

• Not talk at all
• Utter grunts, cries, shrieks, or throaty, harsh sounds
• Hum or talk in a musical way
• Babble with word-like sounds
• Use foreign-sounding “words” or robotic-like speech
• Parrot or often repeat what another person says (called echolalia
• Use the right phrases and sentences, but with an unexpressive tone of voice

About one out of three people with autism has trouble producing speech sounds to effectively communicate with others. Their language is simply too hard to understand.

Communication problems. A person with autism may have one or more of these communication challenges:

• Trouble with conversational skills, which includes eye contact and gestures
• Trouble understanding the meaning of words outside the context where they were learned
• Memorization of things heard without knowing what’s been said
• Reliance on echolalia as the main way to communicate
• Little understanding of the meaning of words or symbols
• Lack of creative language

Physical Therapy

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder. This means that most people on the autism spectrum have delays, differences or disorders in many areas — including gross and fine motor skills. Children on the spectrum may have low muscle tone, or have a tough time with coordination and sports. These issues can interfere with basic day-to-day functioning — and they’re almost certain to interfere with social and physical development.

[...]

Physical therapists may work with very young children on basic motor skills such as sitting, rolling, standing and playing. They may also work with parents to teach them some techniques for helping their child build muscle strength, coordination and skills.
As children grow older, physical therapists are more likely to come to a child’s preschool or school. There, they may work on more sophisticated skills such as skipping, kicking, throwing and catching. These skills are not only important for physical development, but also for social engagement in sports, recess and general play.

In school settings, physical therapists may pull children out to work with them one-on-one, or “push in” to typical school settings such as gym class to support children in real-life situations. It’s not unusual for a physical therapist to create groups including typical and autistic children to work on the social aspects of physical skills. Physical therapists may also work with special education teachers and aides, gym teachers and parents to provide tools for building social/physical skills.

Simply put, autism can be a financial hardship for many families, not even figuring the emotional toll into the equation, including an astronomical divorce rate among parents of autistic children, though that’s a topic for a future diary.

So where does that put us in relation to the current lay of the land?

Does the term pre-existing condition mean ring a bell? In the health insurance industry it doesn’t just ring bells, it sets off alarms. This is one of the reasons the Autism Society of America hasthrown its weight fully behind President Obama.

What health-care reform can do, and what it means for the autism community, is illustrated most easily by the all-too real scenario of two families looking to buy health insurance for their children who are affected by autism. One family, whose son Mauricio, a 24-year-old young man with an autism diagnosis, diligently called several private insurance providers and asked for premium quotes for a policy, and each and every company explained that they will not sell a policy for someone who has an autism diagnosis. Another family, whose 7-year-old daughter, Angela, has a diagnosis of PDD-NOS, made the same calls to a number of insurance companies as well after Angela’s dad got a new job with a different company. They too were told the same old story—no coverage for Angela due to her “pre-existing condition,” autism.

“This is just not right,” said Jeff Sell, Autism Society Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy. “Not only are these families being unfairly refused coverage for treatment of autism, but the companies are also refusing to sell coverage so these young people can see a doctor if they get strep throat, break a bone, develop a stomach ulcer, require intensive behavioral interventions or otherwise simply need access to prescribed medical care. In the future, with meaningful health-care reform, these families will be able to buy health coverage because insurance companies will no longer be able to exclude anyone just because that person has autism, or any other pre-existing condition.”

The White House has two Web sites to help explain the realities of health-care reform: http://www.healthreform.gov/ and www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck. Both provide excellent background information and myth-busting. Further, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) has published a “line-by-line” review of claims and realities regarding HR 3200. That review can be found on his Web site. Many non-governmental organizations have also created Web sites and documents that help provide clarity on the debate. The independent, nonpartisan Web siteshttp://www.politifact.com/ and http://www.factcheck.org/ have investigated a number of claims and provide true-or-false evaluations of many current health-care reform proposals.

Here are the states that currently have autism insurance reform laws, or active bills, h/t to AutismVotes.org.

States with autism insurance reform laws
Arizona
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Illinois
Indiana
Louisiana
Montana
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Texas
Wisconsin

States with active autism insurance reform bills
Maine
Massachusetts
Michigan
New Hampshire
New York
Ohio

Anything short of 50 on this list is unacceptable and the strength of the laws vary from state to state.

An ode to the lost art of eefing. h/t to Steve Caratzas for locating this.

This could be huge.

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a
marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT
researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power:
storing energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because
storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and
grossly inefficient. With today’s announcement, MIT researchers have
hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing
solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this
discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of
all: the sun. “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for
years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera,
the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a
paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. “Solar power
has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think
about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

The Conservative Voice sez:

The National Autism Association (NAA) today joins
thousands of parents around the country in demanding an apology and
retraction from radio talk show host Mike Savage for his July 16
broadcast in which he stated that children affected by autism are
“brats,” and that bad parenting is to blame for a “fraudulent” epidemic
now affecting one in 150 children, according to a press release from
the NAA.

“Autism is a very serious condition that greatly impacts the lives of those affected,” said NAA board member Lori McIlwain.

“Many
children with autism experience tremendous physical pain from
underlying pathologies, which accounts for the screaming this person
callously dismisses. To have an uneducated opinion about autism is
perfectly within one’s right, but to earn a living by shock-value
exploitation of children’s suffering, while suggesting they should be
called ‘idiots,’ is disgraceful,” she said.

Here’s the transcript, via Media Matters:

SAVAGE: Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I’m not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden — why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I’ll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], “When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], ‘I don’t know, the dust got me.’ ” See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.

What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, “Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.”

Autism — everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, “Don’t behave like a fool.” The worst thing he said — “Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.” That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning
your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.

Here’s the audio:

It’s a sign of the times.

Sales of Spam — that much maligned meat — are rising as consumers are
turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their
already stretched food budgets.

Brother can you spare a dime?

Food prices are increasing faster than they’ve risen since 1990, at 4 percent in the U.S. last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Many staples are rising even faster, with white bread up 13 percent last year, bacon up 7 percent and peanut butter up 9 percent.

There’s no sign of a slowdown. Food inflation is running at an annualized rate of 6.1 percent as of April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The price of Spam is up too, with the average 12 oz. can costing about
$2.62. That’s an increase of 17 cents, or nearly 7 percent, from the
same time last year. But it’s not stopping sales, as the pork meat in a
can seems like a good alternative to consumers.

[...]

Spam’s maker, Hormel Foods Corp., reported last week that it saw strong
sales of Spam in the second quarter, helping push up its profits 14
percent. According to sales information coming from Hormel, provided by
The Nielsen Co., Spam sales were up 10.6 percent in the 12-week period
ending May 3, compared to last year. In the last 24 weeks, sales were
up nearly 9 percent.

The FDA was forced into a corner today regarding mercury.

Silver-colored metal dental contain mercury that may cause health problems in pregnant women, children and fetuses, the Food and Drug Administration
said on Wednesday after settling a related lawsuit.

As part of the settlement with several consumer advocacy groups, the FDA agreed to alert consumers about the potential risks on its website and to issue a more specific rule next year for fillings that contain mercury, FDA spokeswoman Peper Long said.

Kudos to Moms Against Mercury, Consumers for Dental Choice, and others for a job well done.

The lawsuit settlement was reached on Monday with several advocacy
groups, including Moms Against Mercury, which had sought to have
mercury fillings removed from the U.S. market.

While the FDA previously said various studies showed no harm from
mercury fillings, some consumer groups contend the fillings can trigger
a range of health problems such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s
disease. In 2006, an FDA advisory panel of outside experts said most
people would not be harmed by them, but said the agency needed more
information.

Mercury has been linked to brain and kidney damage at certain
levels. Amalgams contain half mercury and half a combination of other
metals.

Charles Brown, a lawyer for one of the groups called Consumers for
Dental Choice, said the agency’s move represented an about-face. “Gone,
gone, gone are all of FDA’s claims that no science exists that amalgam
is unsafe,” he said in a statement.

Reality check.

The Bush administration released a climate change assessment on
Thursday — four years late and pushed forward by a court order — that
said human-induced global warming will likely lead to problems like
droughts in the U.S. West and stronger hurricanes.

President George W. Bush’s stance on the issue has evolved from
denying climate science to acknowledging that global warming is
happening. In March, watchdog groups said Bush’s decision to intervene
in setting air pollution standards was part of a pattern of meddling in
environmental science.

The “Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the
United States” released on Thursday synthesized previous reports,
including those by the government’s climate change science program and
last year’s work by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.

Laws? What laws?

According to the Global Change Research Act (1990), the government needs to issue a report on global warming every four years. However, no other report has been issued since 2000, which determined environmental groups to demand the Bush administration to fulfill its obligations.

It is well known that the Bush administration takes more of an economic approach on global warming, rather than an objective one, and that greenhouse emissions regulation is not something they support.

That’s stating the obvious. Can 2009 possibly get here quickly enough?

Simply put, this is disgusting. 

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about
(Melissa) Barton’s 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy
Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class.

The diagnosis process had begun in February and it appears to be Asperger’s syndrome. This is gonna leave a mark.

The other students said he was “disgusting” and “annoying,” Barton said.

“He was incredibly upset,” Barton said. “The only friend he has ever made in his life was forced to do this.”

St. Lucie School’s spokeswoman Janice Karst said the district is
investigating the incident, but could not make any further comment.

Vern Melvin, Department of Children and Families circuit administrator,
confirmed the agency is investigating an allegation of abuse at
Morningside but said he could not elaborate.

This is what meaningful environmental leadership looks like.

Air pollution regulators in the San Francisco Bay area voted
overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve new rules that impose fees on
businesses for emitting greenhouse gasses.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s board of directors voted 15-1 to charge companies 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide they emit, an agency spokeswoman said.

Experts say the fees, which cover nine counties in the Bay Area, are
the first of their kind in the country. The new rules are set to take
effect July 1.

The modest fee probably won’t be enough to force companies to reduce their
emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating
climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts
nationwide.

“It doesn’t solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms,” said Daniel Kammen, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms.”

But surprise surprise, not everyone is enamored with the plan.

Cathy Reheis-Boyd, chief operating officer for the Western States Petroleum Association, said that climate change is “a big issue that needs a comprehensive statewide plan to address it. We believe it’s premature for local air districts to design local programs before we have a state program.”