The Romney campaign has released a new ad about how the Romneys’ strong marriage helps them cope with Ann Romney’s multiple sclerosis. About 400,000 Americans are living with this progressive, debilitating, and as-yet incurable neurological condition. Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic has mixed feelings about the ad because, as touching as the Romneys’ personal story may be, the fact remains that Mitt Romney’s policy platform would make life a lot worse for ordinary people with MS and other chronic diseases. Cohn explains: 

But if you have MS, or any other serious chronic illness, you need more than a devoted spouse. You need a way to pay your medical bills. And, historically, many people with MS have struggled with that. MS is a long-term, progressively debilitating disease, requiring ever more costly treatments and equipment. The bills are high enough that even patients with private insurance have struggled with out-of-pocket expenses or run up against annual or lifetime limits on payments. And those patients have been, in some respects, the lucky ones. People who buy coverage on their own or through small businesses frequently end up with exorbitant rates or skimpy benefits, or can’t get coverage at all. Those are just some of the reasons the MS Society has long supported reforms that would, among other things, provide “comprehensive, quality health care available to all.” [TNR]

Cohn won the Hillman Prize in 2010 for his outstanding coverage of health care policy.

Consumers might not consider sunscreen a powerhouse industry, but many of its manufacturers, as well as makers of other products that claim to offer some degree of sun protection, are actually part of giant cosmetics or chemical companies – which are heavy-hitters here in Washington (for instance Merck, which owns the popular Coppertone sunscreen brand.) Two trade organizations closely aligned with the cosmetics industry have gone to bat on the labeling rules, demanding the FDA roll them back – the Personal Care Products Council, which has spent about $140,000 on lobbying so far this year, and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which has dropped about $210,000 so far in 2012. The Personal Care Products Association spent $890,000 in 2011, and well over $1 million the previous two years, while the Consumer Healthcare Products Association spent $835,000 last year, and $3.2 million in 2010. Both report lobbying the FDA.

 

Turning this into a full-blown beach brawl, a handful of senators are now promoting legislation – the Sunscreen Labeling Protection Act – to force the FDA to speed up the process. But don’t confuse that with the Skin Cancer Prevention, Education, and Consumer Right-To-Know Act, another piece of proposed legislation to begin enforcement of the new rules. Both pieces of legislation are currently stuck in place.

In the best tradition of Big Tobacco, the European chemical giant CIBA created a front group called Citizens for Sun Protection, Choma notes. CIBA is part of an even larger company that claims to manufacture half the world supply of UV-blocking chemicals.

[Photo credit: Amy McTeague, Creative Commons.]

• One in three American Indian women is a survivor of rape or attempted rape, according to the Department of Justice. Timothy Williams of the New York Times takes an in-depth look at sexual violence on tribal lands and the failure of politicians in Washington to address the problem.
• The Orange County Register reports on the Axxent FlexiShield, a medical device designed to protect patients undergoing radiation. The shield can fragment inside the body, peppering tissues with tungsten particles. The FDA approved the device without clinical tests to prove its safety through a controversial approval process known as 510(k). Medical device manufacturers successfully lobbied to expand the 510(k) program, which was originally intended for low- and moderate-risk devices only but today accounts for about 90% of all devices approved for market, including high-risk implantables.
• Dr. Amy Tuteur, a retired OB-GYN, savages the New York Times’ credulous coverage of home birth midwife Ina May Gaskin: “Let’s get something straight: Ina May Gaskin has blood on her hands, and not merely the blood of her own child sacrificed on the altar of homebirth. Gaskin presides over a large multi-faceted business empire comprised of trade, propaganda and lobbying organizations, all with one purpose in mind: allowing uneducated women like herself to provide substandard medical care to pregnant women while ignoring the growing pile of tiny bodies.”

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]

Spencer Soper won a Sidney Award for his expose of deplorable working conditions at an Amazon warehouse complex. This week, Soper published another memorable labor story. His latest dispatch is about truck drivers who say they were fired for talking about forming a union:

Five months after it opened a new $35 million cardboard plant in Lower Macungie, Pratt Corrugated Logistics laid off most of its 18 truck drivers, telling them the company decided to contract with outside haulers instead.

But 13 drivers who lost their jobs in April allege in legal documents that their terminations came after the company found out they were talking about forming a union.

The drivers complained to the National Labor Relations Board that they were terminated due to union activities, in violation of federal laws that protect workers’ rights to form collective bargaining units.

The Morning Call interviewed eight truck drivers who were terminated, and those interviewed maintain they have reason to be suspicious of the company’s motives. [Morning Call]

Read the whole thing.

[Photo credit: visagency, Creative Commons.]