Tag Archives: case

These Antidepressants May Increase the Risk of Birth Defects

by SusannahGiles Posted on July 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Babies born to women who took certain antidepressants during pregnancy may have an elevated risk of birth defects, according to a study published Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ.

Over the past few years, researchers have come to conflicting conclusions about the health impacts of taking common antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, early in pregnancy. Some studies have found prenatal exposure to SSRIs to be associated with heart and brain defects, autism, and more, while others have found the risk to be minimal or nonexistent.

The BMJ study, led by researchers at the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shed light on the matter by analyzing federal data of 38,000 births between 1997 and 2009. Researchers interviewed the mothers of children with certain birth defects associated with SSRIs, asking if they took certain antidepressants during the first three months of pregnancy or the month prior to it. Unlike many previous studies, which looked at the effects of SSRIs as a group, the researchers looked at the health impacts of five specific drugs. They found that two drugs were associated with birth defects, while three of the drugs were not. Here are the details:

Sertraline (Zoloft): No increased risk of birth defects. (This was the most common of the five drugs, taken by forty percent of the women on antidepressants.)
Paroxetine (Paxil): Babies were between 2 and 3.5 more likely to be born with heart defects, brain defects, holes between heart chambers, and intestinal deformities.
Fluoxetine (Prozac): Babies were two times more likely to experience heart defects and skull and brain shape abnormalities.
Escitalopram (Lexapro): No increased risk of birth defects.
Citalopram (Celexa): No increased risk of birth defects.

Researchers are quick to note that even in the case of paroxetine and fluexetine, the absolute risk of these defects is still very small. If mothers take paroxetine early in pregnancy, for example, the chance of giving birth to a baby with anencephaly, a brain defect, rise from 2 in 10,000 to 7 in 10,000.

Some doctors worry that studies like this dissuade mothers who truly need mental health treatment from seeking it—particularly since the stress associated with depression in the mother can impact the health of the baby. Elizabeth Fitelson, a Columbia University psychiatrist who treats pregnant women with depression, described this tricky balance to the New York Times earlier this year: “For about 10 percent of my patients, I can readily say that they don’t need medication and should go off it,” she said. “I see a lot of high-risk women. Another 20 percent absolutely have to stay on medication—people who have made a suicide attempt every time they’ve been unmedicated. For the remaining 70 percent, it’s a venture into the unknowable.”

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These Antidepressants May Increase the Risk of Birth Defects

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My $500 Pill Revealed

by Jarred2039 Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Have you ever wondered what a $500 pill looks like? Well, here’s your answer: it looks like pretty much any other pill.

Anyway, I’m supposed to take this for 21 days, then a week off, then another 21 days, etc. This will last a few months before we know if it’s working. If it does work, then I’ll be taking it forever (I think). So that’s $126,000 per year to keep Kevin alive. Of course, I pay only a fraction of that thanks to having excellent health insurance, and I’m sure that even Kaiser pays nowhere near that list price. Maybe half that, or a third. Still, pretty expensive!

Luckily I’m not on Obamacare. From what I hear, my case would have gone straight to a death panel, which almost certainly would have decided that my societal worth didn’t measure up to the cost of the treatment. And who could argue? I mean, blogging? Seriously?

POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to mention something in my previous health update: I feel great. Not 100 percent, mind you, but pretty good. My stomach is in fine fettle (in fact, I’m overeating these days), I’m sleeping well, and my energy level has recovered almost to normal. The long-term prognosis for the multiple myeloma is obviously still uncertain, and that’s an unhappy thing, but in the meantime at least I feel good for the first time in eight months!

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My $500 Pill Revealed

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Justice Anthony Kennedy Just Saved a Major Civil Rights Law

by LarueGovernor Posted on June 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Congress passed the Fair Housing Act (FHA) to end pervasive segregation against the backdrop of urban race riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. On Thursday, mere months after riots exploded in Ferguson and Baltimore, the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the law’s most powerful tool for fighting segregation.

The decision was a welcome surprise to civil rights advocates who had feared that the conservative-leaning court under Chief Justice John Roberts—the same court that struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act two years ago—was set to undo another major civil rights law.

In a 5-4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court’s liberal wing to uphold so-called “disparate impact” liability, preserving the law’s authority to root out policies that have a discriminatory effect on minorities. Under the FHA, policies that have a harmful effect—a disparate impact—on minorities are illegal, even if that harm was unintentional. For decades, disparate impact has been vital to fighting segregation in housing because of the difficulty in proving purposeful discrimination.

“I can’t help thinking that recent events in places like Ferguson and Baltimore must have had some impact on Justice Kennedy’s approach to this case,” says appellate lawyer Deepak Gupta, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of current and former members of Congress that urged the court to uphold the disparate impact standard. “We have de facto segregation in lots of places in the country. And if the only way to remedy that in the legal system is to prove that somebody did something on purpose and said so, then the civil rights laws are a lot less powerful in combating these problems.”

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Justice Anthony Kennedy Just Saved a Major Civil Rights Law

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Read the 7 Most Ridiculous Lines from Justice Antonin Scalia’s Obamacare Dissent

by LavonneGaines Posted on June 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare’s insurance subsidies in a 6-3 decision penned by Chief Justice John Roberts. Legal experts had long dismissed the merits of the case, and it even turned out that the plaintiffs had questionable standing.

But to three of the court’s conservative justices, the court’s decision to side with the government is a sign not only that the court is full of partisan hacks, but also that words themselves hold no meaning.

In a blistering 21-page dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia accused John Roberts of abandoning his judicial independence to defend Obamacare at any and all costs. “Normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved,” Scalia writes.

Just how absurd is it, in Scalia’s mind, that the court upheld the subsidies? Here are his other prime quotes of indignation at the majority’s opinion:

“Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.'”
“The decision rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare”.
“The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”
“You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.”
“Impossible possibility, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act!”
“Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”
“The cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

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Read the 7 Most Ridiculous Lines from Justice Antonin Scalia’s Obamacare Dissent

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Why Chris Christie Is Fighting the Release of His Media List

by CarriWinning Posted on June 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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For years, the news media has been battling New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for access to a host of ostensibly public records. In February, Mother Jones’ Molly Redden reported that Christie’s administration was fighting 23 open-records requests in court, on everything from Bridgegate to Christie’s out-of-state travel and contracts awarded in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. These fights over records aren’t just minor squabbles between pesky reporters and a prickly governor—they are costing New Jersey taxpayers serious money. As of September 2014, the Christie administration had shelled out $441,000 reimbursing lawyers for plaintiffs who successfully sued for records (and that doesn’t include other costs, such as government lawyers’ time).

Even when the Christie administration loses, it doesn’t go down without a fight. The New Jersey Watchdog, an independent investigative reporting outlet, reported Monday that the Christie administration is challenging a court’s order to release a comprehensive media list that was created by the governor’s communications office. The communications office is staffed by 16 people who earned more than $1.3 million in taxpayer-funded salaries last year.

The list, requested by the New Jersey Watchdog, includes “contact information for roughly 2,500 reporters, producers and editors, subdivided into categories, which enables Christie and his staff to selectively target efforts to promote their political ambitions,” according to the outlet. The Christie administration is arguing that providing the list would give the New Jersey Watchdog an unfair competitive advantage over other media outlets and is refusing to release it under a law that allows the government to withhold records that include trade secrets or proprietary information of government contractors.

“New Jersey Watchdog does not bid on government contracts,” Mark Lagerkvist, the site’s reporter and editor, wrote Monday. “It is a non-profit investigative news site that freely shares its content with other news outlets.… The governor’s argument suggests the governor has a proprietary, or ownership interest in the list. But the governor’s office is not a private business. And while the media list may be a valuable asset for his political future, it is not Christie’s property.”

Lagerkvist told Mother Jones that his attorney will file a response to the administration’s challenge and the judge in the case will likely schedule a hearing to decide the matter.

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Why Chris Christie Is Fighting the Release of His Media List

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The Legal Trouble That Could Haunt Rick Perry’s Presidential Campaign

by TerrencWmv Posted on June 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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Rick Perry’s recently launched presidential campaign is off to a relatively smooth start. Sure, unlike his 2012 bid, he’s entering the field far, far behind in the polls—he’s trailing Donald Trump!—but he’s been getting good press. “Rick Perry’s still got it,” proclaimed Politico‘s Katie Glueck over the weekend, noting that “when it comes to glad-handing and working a crowd, Perry still sets the gold standard even if he trails in the polls.”

But as he launches his second run for the White House, Perry faces ongoing legal trouble back home in Texas stemming from his time as governor. Last August, a grand jury indicted Perry for abusing his power as governor. Perry has repeatedly requested that judges dismiss the case, only to be rebuked as the allegations progress toward a trial—one that could play out during the heat of the GOP primaries.

The case is a bit convoluted, but it stems from Perry’s 2013 effort to oust a county district attorney who investigates public corruption.

Texas has an unusual system of keeping politicians in check. There’s no a state-level commission that scrutinizes political malfeasance. Instead, the Travis County DA—based in Austin—is responsible for conducting these investigations.

Texas Republicans had never been huge fans of a system that entrusts this liberal county with that power (especially after the Travis DA charged former US House majority leader Tom DeLay with violating election law in 2005). Nevertheless, the status quo had hummed along until April 2013, when police arrested Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg for drunk driving. Lehmberg, a Democrat, was caught on videotape the night of her arrest threatening police officers.

Republicans, including Perry, immediately called on Lehmberg to resign. But she refused, managing to hold onto her job despite various legal maneuvers to remove her from office. So Perry attempted a more creative method to get rid of Lehmberg. In 2013, he used the governor’s line item veto power to cross out $7.5 million in funds allocated to the Public Integrity Unit, the subsection of the Travis County DA’s office that investigates political corruption. Perry directly linked the veto to Lehmberg’s arrest, saying he couldn’t allow the funds to go to this outfit “when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence.”

That raised the ire of Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning good government outfit. It filed a complaint alleging Perry had abused his office’s powers. “The governor overstepped his authority by sticking his nose in Travis County’s business,” the group’s executive director said in a statement at the time. This led to a judge tasking a special prosecutor to look into the case, and that led to a grand jury and felony indictment for Perry on one count of abusing his official capacity and another count of coercing a public servant.

Perry has been dismissive of the case, turning his mugshot into a fundraising t-shirt. And a number of legal commentators, even liberal ones, have agreed, questioning the seriousness of the charges leveled against Perry. University of California, Irvine law professor Rick Hasen termed it “the criminalization of ordinary politics.”

Yet judges in Texas aren’t ready to shelve the charges. San Antonio Judge Bert Richardson has repeatedly turned down motions from Perry’s lawyers to dismiss the case. In April, the case was assigned to a three-judge panel in Texas’ 3rd Court of Appeals. No date has been set for initial hearings, so the case might not get fully aired until the peak of presidential primary season later this fall. If Perry he ends up getting convicted on both counts, he would face a maximum sentence of over 100 years of jail time.

No matter the outcome of the case, Perry soon might get his wish to see Lehmberg off the public corruption beat: The state house and senate both recently passed bills to reassign corruption cases to the Texas Rangers—a law enforcement agency that is overseen by the governor’s appointees.

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The Legal Trouble That Could Haunt Rick Perry’s Presidential Campaign

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SCOTUS Delivers Good News for Abusive Trolls

by ZenaidaNeblett Posted on June 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Trolls and libertarians rejoice. In a highly watched case that explored the tough question of what distinguishes protected free speech from illegal threats, the Supreme Court on Monday made it harder for the government to prosecute individuals who are making threatening statements toward others.

The court voided the conviction of Anthony Elonis, who was found guilty of issuing unlawful threats over Facebook with rants that referred to killing his estranged wife. Elonis argued that his posts, which were presented as rap lyrics, were a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. He was convicted in federal district court in Pennsylvania under the “reasonable person” standard: Would a reasonable person consider Elonis’ posts threatening?

In a 7-2 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the reasonable person test wasn’t sufficient for a criminal conviction like this one. Avoiding touchy First Amendment questions, the court determined that Elonis’ posts should have been evaluated under a tougher standard that takes his mental state into account. That is, did he intend to follow through on his threats or did he know that his words would be seen as a threat?

“Elonis’s conviction was premised solely on how his posts would be viewed by a reasonable person, a standard…inconsistent with the conventional criminal conduct requirement of ‘awareness of some wrongdoing,'” Roberts wrote. He noted that a criminal conviction could only be supported “if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat.”

The case presented a difficult First Amendment question pitting freedom of expression against the freedom to not be threatened with violence. But the justices ducked the matter. The ruling was predicated on a statutory interpretation.

Elonis was sentenced to 44 months in prison for threatening to harm and even kill his estranged wife in Facebook posts—threats that left his wife afraid for her safety. Elonis fought the charges, arguing that he could not be imprisoned because he never intended to hurt his wife. A criminal conviction for someone who had no intent to harm, he contended, violated the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech. But the trial court disagreed and instructed the jury to use the reasonable-person standard.

The federal government argued that the reasonable person test is the best way to determine whether a statement is a threat. Its lawyers maintained that even if there is no intent to harm, such threats can severely disrupt the lives of those people targeted.

Civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, supported Elonis, fearing an encroachment on free-speech rights. Advocates for victims of domestic violence, though, argued that victims of domestic abuse “suffer the devastating psychological and economic effects of threats of violence, which their abusers deliver more and more often via social media,” according to an amicus brief. This brief, filed by the National Network to End Domestic Violence and a number of state-based anti-domestic-violence groups, argued that threats are often a precursor to actual violence.

The Elonis case was argued before the court in early December and the justices took a full six months to decide the case. Roberts was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and the court’s liberal wing. Justice Samuel Alito joined in part and dissented in part. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented.

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SCOTUS Delivers Good News for Abusive Trolls

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Rand Paul Didn’t Kill the Patriot Act

by KatheriPohlman Posted on June 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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I was down with a stomach bug this weekend, so I didn’t follow events in the Senate as closely as I usually would have. But Rand Paul sure seems to be getting a lot more credit than he deserves for how things went down. As near as I can tell:

Mitch McConnell just flat screwed up. He figured he could panic everyone into extending the Patriot Act by waiting until Sunday to reconvene the Senate, and he figured wrong.
Rand Paul did indeed delay things by refusing unanimous consent to take up a compromise bill.
But events went the way they did because a majority of the Senate opposed McConnell and wanted a compromise bill, not because of anything Rand Paul did.
The upshot of Paul’s actions is that the compromise bill has to wait until Tuesday for a vote, which means the Patriot Act will be expired for a couple of days. This is not really a big deal in anything other than symbolic terms. The compromise bill is going to be passed one way or another, and that would have been the case regardless of anything Paul did.

Am I missing something big here? I don’t begrudge Paul getting some good press for what he did. Politics is theater, and Paul has worked hard to make this a front-page issue. Still, there just wasn’t a majority in favor of extending the Patriot Act, and that’s what made the difference.

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Rand Paul Didn’t Kill the Patriot Act

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Mayor: 6 Months Is "an Unacceptably Long Period of Time" to Investigate a Police Shooting

by JesseAunger Posted on May 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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When police officers shoot or kill unarmed civilians, it can take months, even years, for the incidents to be officially investigated and publicly explained. As Mother Jones recently reported, the cop who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland had yet to be interviewed by investigators, more than six months since Rice’s death. The family of 37-year-old Tanisha Anderson, who died after being restrained by police last November, also in Cleveland, is still waiting for answers.

The case of Jerame Reid has gotten far less attention. Reid was a passenger in a car that was pulled over on December 30, 2014, in Bridgeton, New Jersey. As recorded by the police car’s dashboard camera, two officers approached the car and allegedly found a gun in the glove box. When the 36-year-old Reid tried to get out of the car with his hands apparently up and in front of his chest, the officers opened fire, and Reid died. The officers in the case—Roger Worley and Braheme Days—were placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

Nearly six months later, Reid’s family and his community are still waiting for answers. It’s not clear exactly where the investigation stands. Last weekend, a report in the New Jersey Star-Ledger suggested the case had been passed from the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. A spokesman for the New Jersey AG told Mother Jones that the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office is still the lead agency in the investigation and declined further comment. A message sent to the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office wasn’t answered.

The wait has been too long, according to Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly. In an op-ed published earlier this week, Kelly lays out exactly why the wait in these cases is such a problem:

Six months may not seem like a long time if you’re in the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office handling multiple cases, nor would it seem a long time if your view is one taken from the perch of the Office of the Attorney General.

But it is an eternity if you’re the grieving widow and part of a grieving family wanting some sense of closure. It’s also a stunningly long time if you and your family are waiting around day after day to find out your fate and what the balance of the rest of your life might look like.

Beyond that, it may well be an unacceptably long period of time for an entire community waiting to find out what exactly happened to one of its own, for better or for ill, on a cold December night a few days after Christmas, at what began as a routine traffic stop.

The time involved, just like the questions involved, is no small thing because for anyone who cares—for anyone who knows how quickly things can go from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye at what was essentially a routine interaction between a police officer and a citizen—it’s about knowing where the lines are drawn and maybe where they got crossed.

Mayor Kelly’s letter expresses the growing impatience with the slow official responses to police killings that have long been the norm. As David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, explained to Mother Jones reporter Jaeah Lee, recent events have changed the way Americans look at these investigations. “One year ago, we probably did not take a lot of notice,” he says. “It’s only since Ferguson, and especially since North Charleston and Baltimore, that we are seeing cases being evaluated and moved more rapidly.”

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Mayor: 6 Months Is "an Unacceptably Long Period of Time" to Investigate a Police Shooting

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Judges Are Just Extensions of Political Parties These Days

by OliviaMonahan Posted on May 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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From a post by Dara Lind about a court ruling on President Obama’s immigration plan:

The two Republican-appointed judges hearing the case sided against the administration, while the Democratic-appointed judge on the panel sided with the White House.

How many times have we read sentences exactly like this? It’s a wonder that anyone in the country still believes that federal judges are honest brokers these days.

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Judges Are Just Extensions of Political Parties These Days

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