The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Federal initiative to reduce asthma rates in minority and poor children laudable, but more specifics needed on pollution reduction requirements

Today, U.S. federal agencies unveiled a plan, called “The Coordinated Federal Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Asthma Disparities,” to lower asthma rates among minority and poor children.

Nearly 26 million Americans are affected by asthma, including 7 million children, especially minority children and children with family incomes below the poverty level.

Asthma rates of African American children are 16 percent, while 16.5 percent of Puerto Rican children suffer from the asthma, more than double the rate of Caucasian children in the United States. The annual economic cost of asthma, including direct medical costs from hospital stays and indirect costs such as lost school and work days, is about $56 billion.

“As the mother of a child with asthma, I know what it means for our children to have clean and healthy air to breathe,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement.

The action plan will enable federal agencies and their partners to work together in better ways to tackle a major health threat, Jackson said

“Low-income and minority communities often face an unacceptable burden of pollution in this country, diminishing their economic potential and threatening the health of millions of American families,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The plan is part of the Obama administration efforts to integrate environmental justice into the missions of federal agencies, Sutley said.

The plan is a blueprint for how federal agencies can work together to reduce asthma disparities and help ensure children with asthma get the right care with the right support,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said.

“One key factor that is so critical to controlling a child’s asthma is access to health care, Sebelius said. “Uninsured people with asthma are less likely to take the preventive medicine they may need to keep their condition under control, making them more likely to suffer an attack.”

While the action plan has merits, information on whether EPA is stepping up its efforts to curb pollution control is missing. It should be part of any action plan for reducing asthma rates for children and all consumers in America.

The action plan will coordinate efforts to improve asthma management and prevention:

• Reduce barriers to asthma care: Ensure that the populations most severely impacted by asthma receive comprehensive care, which includes access to medical services, education, and environmental interventions.

• Build local capacity: Enhance capacity to deliver integrated, community-based asthma care systems.   

• Target services: Identify the children, families, and communities most impacted by asthma disparities.

• Accelerate prevention efforts: Increase understanding of the causes of asthma and test interventions that may prevent the onset of asthma. 

For more information on the action plan, please visit http://www.epa.gov/asthma/childrenstaskforce.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Blogging Boomer Carnival #261: Read about veterans, weight loss, hepatitis C testing, investments, part-time work, and food storage

By Rita R. Robison

This week’s Blogging Boomer Carnival is hosted by Vaboomer.com.

Take a look at the weekly roundup of boomer articles on a variety of topics including remembering veterans, losing weight, testing for hepatitis C, investing, working part time, and solving food storage problems.

Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are America’s largest age group so far, and a fascinating group they are.

Boomers are leading corporations, serving as governmental officials, heading up non-profits, worrying about retirement, and experiencing layoffs at a higher rate than younger workers. They’re also reinventing themselves in trying economic times, with some looking for their dream jobs to keep them happy in retirement.

At each stage in their lives, boomers have changed things. They’re continuing to make America different as they begin entering into their retirement years.

In addition to The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, members of the Blogging Boomer Carnival are: The Accidental Locavore, The Midlife Crisis Queen, Sightings at 60, Arabian Tales and Other Amazing Adventures, So Baby Boomer, Vaboomer, Empty House Full Mind, and Witty Woman Writing.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Memorial Day 2012: Let’s work for peace as we remember the wars of the past

By Rita R. Robison

In remembering the service men and women who have fought in wars, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace.

Obama designated 11 a.m. today as a time to unite in prayer. He also asked all Americans to observe in their own way the National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day.

Best wishes on Memorial Day.

See the website of Veterans for Peace for activities you can join to help bring peace to America and war-torn countries throughout the world.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Recall of the Week: Crib and play yards tents due to strangulation and entrapment hazard

By Rita R. Robison

A voluntary recall to provide refunds to consumers who own crib and play yard tents made by Tots in Mind Inc. is being announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and five retailers. About 330,000 tents are included in the recall.

The commission is warning parents and caregivers who own these products that infants and toddlers are at risk of serious injury or death due to strangulation and entrapment hazards from these products.

Tots in Mind recalled the play yard tents in July 2010 and offered a repair kit that’s no longer available. The company has shut down and all sales have stopped.

The commission staff urges parents and caregivers to stop using these crib and play yard tents immediately. Don’t attempt to repair these products, the commission advised in a statement.

The commission is aware of 27 tent failures including one fatality and one serious injury that occurred between January 1997 and April 2012 from crib and play yard tents made by Tots in Mind Inc.

In 2008, a two-year-old boy died after becoming entrapped between the bottom rail of a play yard tent and the top rail of a play yard. The fatality was reported in a prior recall with the firm in July 15, 2010.

In 2007, a two year old boy had a catastrophic brain injury when the crib tent attached to his crib inverted and the product’s broken rod trapped his neck. The remaining 25 reports to commission involved inverted crib tents – entrapments between the tent and the crib or play yard or failures of the tent fabric and zippers.

Three of these 25 reports also resulted in injuries; in one such case, a parent reported finding her child turning blue and entrapped between the product and the top rail of the play yard.

Since Tots in Mind Inc. is out of business, retailers who sold these products are offering refunds or store credit to consumers.

The crib and play yard tents can present an entrapment and strangulation hazard to infants and toddlers if the dome portion inverts inside the crib or play yard or if the product becomes partially detached from the crib or play yard.

The recalled products were sold at many retail stores including Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby, Burlington Coat Factory, Toys R Us/Babies R Us, Wal-Mart, and online on websites including Amazon.com. The cost was between $60 and $85.

Consumers should contact the store listed below where the crib tent was purchased to receive either a refund or store credit, depending on the retailer. If the consumer is unsure of where the crib tent was purchased, see the return policy for individual retailers below on their website:

• Amazon.com [Amazon.com]
• Bed Bath & Beyond/Buy Buy Baby [bedbathandbeyond.com or buybuybaby.com or 800- GOBEYOND
• Burlington Coat Factory [burlingtoncoatfactory.com or 888-223-2628
• Toys R Us/Babies R Us [toysrus.com or babiesrus.com or 800-869-7787
• Wal-Mart [walmartstores.com or 800-925-6278

The recall includes various models of crib or play yard tents. Consumers can identify their tent by the 2 inch by 1½ inch label with Tots In Mind logo located on the non-mesh portion near the top of the tent.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Watch out for Memorial Day schemes that target members of the military and their families and supporters

Memorial Day is a time to honor those who serve and remember those who have died in war. But, it’s also become a time for scammers to target those who are serving or have served their nation, especially elderly veterans.

The Better Business Bureau is urging consumers and donors to be on the lookout for deals that seem too good to be true and for disreputable charities.

“Military personnel are targeted for a few reasons: they get a steady paycheck, they tend to be young, they move around a lot, if they’re deployed they may not be watching their finances/personal info closely, everything in the military revolves around their social security number, so it’s easy for them to have their identity stolen,” Coleen Smith, executive director of the BBB Education Foundation, said in a statement.

To avoid problems, visit www.give.org to verify a charity before donating and be on the lookout for these common scams:

Scams that target military personnel:

• Fraudulent investors try to convince veterans to transfer their assets into an irrevocable trust.
• Callers pose as the Veterans Administration and request military personnel to update credit card, bank, or other financial records with the VA.
• Scammers pose as government contractors recruiting veterans and ask for a copy of the job applicants’ passport.
• Companies specifically target military for services they could get for free or less expensively elsewhere.
• Ads offer “instant approval” military loans – “no credit check,” “all ranks approved” – that can have high interest rates and hidden fees.
• Ads offer military discounts and incentives online on housing and then cheat service personnel out of their security deposit.

Scams that target military supporters

• Scammers try to sell services such as security systems to spouses of deployed military personnel by saying the service member ordered it to protect his or her family.
• People sell stolen vehicles at a low price and claim to be soldiers who need to sell quickly because they’ve been deployed.
• Individuals pose on online dating services as a lonely service member in a remote part of Iraq or Afghanistan, and ask for money to be wired to a third party for some emergency.

The BBB advises service members, veterans, and all consumers never to give personal identification information – Social Security, bank account, military identification, or credit card numbers – to anyone who contacts you by phone or e-mail, and to be wary of any solicitations that involve purchasing something or transferring money.

Consumers can check out businesses and charities at www.bbb.org.

For more information, visit www.bbb.org/us/military-line.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

CDC advises all baby boomers be tested for hepatitis C

May is Hepatitis Awareness Month.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is issuing draft guidelines proposing that all U.S. baby boomers get a one-time test for the hepatitis C virus.

One in 30 boomers – born from 1946 through 1964 – has been infected with hepatitis C, and most don’t know it. Hepatitis C causes serious liver diseases including liver cancer, which is the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths, and the leading cause of liver transplants in the United States.

The CDC believes testing will address the largely preventable consequences of this disease, especially since new therapies can cure up to 75 percent of infections.

“With increasingly effective treatments now available, we can prevent tens of thousands of deaths from hepatitis C,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., said in a statement.

More than 2 million U.S. baby boomers are infected with hepatitis C, accounting for more than 75 percent of all American adults living with the virus. Boomers are five times more likely to be infected than other adults. Yet most infected boomers don’t know they have the virus because hepatitis C can damage the liver for many years with few noticeable symptoms.

More than 15,000 Americans, mostly boomers, die each year from hepatitis C-related illness, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Deaths have been increasing steadily for more than a decade and are projected to grow significantly in coming years.

“Identifying these hidden infections early will allow more baby boomers to receive care and treatment, before they develop life-threatening liver disease,” said Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention.

Current CDC guidelines call for testing only individuals with certain known risk factors for hepatitis C infection. But studies find that many boomers don’t perceive themselves to be at risk and aren’t being tested.

The CDC estimates one-time hepatitis C testing of boomers could identify more than 800,000 additional people with hepatitis C, prevent the costly consequences of liver cancer and other chronic liver diseases, and save more than 120,000 lives.

The CDC’s draft recommendations are available for a public comment period until June 8.

For additional information about hepatitis, visit www.cdc.gov/hepatitis.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Most states don’t protect patients from substandard physicians, citizens’ group study shows

Most states, including one of the largest – Florida – aren’t living up to their obligations to protect consumers from doctors who are practicing substandard medicine, in part because of budget cuts, according to Public Citizen’s annual ranking of state medical boards.

This information is important to baby boomer consumers because older adults receive a large porportion of medical care in America.

“Action must be taken, legislatively and through public pressure on medical boards themselves, to increase the amount of discipline, and thus, the amount of patient protection,” Sidney Wolfe, M.D., director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said in a statement. “Ensuring that medical boards are adequately funded is an important prerequisite to achieving this, especially because doctors’ licensing fees, intended to fund medical board functions, are sometimes taken to fund other state functions, which has recently occurred in California.”

South Carolina was the worst state when it came to disciplining doctors, and, along with Minnesota and Wisconsin, has consistently been among the bottom 10 states for each of the past nine Public Citizen rankings.

Connecticut has been in the bottom 10 for each of the past six rankings. For the fourth time in a row, Florida is among the 10 states with the lowest rates of serious disciplinary actions even though it’s beginning to improve.

Other large states, such as Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, have been in the bottom half of state rankings for all nine rankings and California has been in the bottom half for the past six rankings.

 “One likely reason for some medical boards’ declining rate of discipline is tighter state budgets,” Wolfe said. “The ability of certain states to rapidly increase or decrease their rankings, even when calculated based on three-year averages, can only be due to changes in practices and staffing at the board level. The prevalence of physicians eligible for discipline cannot possibly change so rapidly.”

Public Citizen’s analysis of medical board data from all states and the District of Columbia found that the rate at which doctors are disciplined by state medical boards has declined significantly over the past seven years, and some of the worst states have been consistently poor performers.

Nationally, in 2011, state medical boards took 3.06 serious actions per 1,000 physicians – up slightly, 3 percent, from last year but still down 18 percent from the peak rate of discipline in 2004 of 3.72 per 1,000 physicians.

The worst state is South Carolina with Washington, D.C. next. Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Nevada, New Jersey, and Florida make up the rest of the ten worst boards.

Wyoming was the best state when it came to disciplining doctors, taking 6.79 serious actions per 1,000 physicians, a rate five times higher than South Carolina. Three states – Alaska, Ohio, and Oklahoma – have been in the top 10 for all nine rankings.

Only one of the nation’s 15 most populous states, Ohio, is represented among those 10 states with the highest disciplinary rates. The best states when it comes to doctor discipline, in order, are Wyoming, Louisiana, Ohio, Delaware, New Mexico, Nebraska, Alaska, Oklahoma, Washington, and West Virginia.

The annual rankings are based on data from the Federation of State Medical Boards, specifically on the number of serious disciplinary actions taken against doctors in 2009-2011.

Boards are likely to do a better job disciplining physicians, according to Public Citizen, if the boards:

• Receive adequate funding – all money from license fees going to fund board activities instead of going into the state treasury for general purposes.
• Have adequate staffing.
• Engage in proactive investigations, rather than only reacting to complaints.
• Use all available/reliable data from other sources such as Medicare and Medicaid sanctions, hospital sanctions, and malpractice payouts.
• Have excellent leadership.
• Have independence from state medical societies.
• Are independent from other parts of the state government.
• Use a reasonable legal framework for disciplining doctors, the “preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond reasonable doubt” or “clear and convincing evidence” as the legal standard for discipline.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Recall of the Week: Kennedy International folding step stools due to fall hazard

By Rita R. Robison

13-inch folding step stools

Kennedy International is recalling about 1.6 million folding step stools in the United States and 64,000 in Canada.

The folding step stools can break or collapse unexpectedly when in use, posing a fall hazard to consumers, the company and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a joint statement.

Kennedy International is aware of at least 15 reports of incidents involving step stools cracking or breaking, including three reports of injuries to consumers using the stools. Injuries included two reports of back injuries and one report of a fractured leg.

9-inch folding step stools

The recall involves 9-inch and 13-inch Kennedy International folding step stools. The step stools are plastic and have a handle for carrying the stools when they’re folded.

The style number is 3575 for the 9-inch and 3576 for the 13-inch step stools. The style number is printed on a sticker on one of the legs of the stool. "Kennedy Home Collection" is also printed on a label on some of the stools.

They were sold in blue, green, gray, red, purple, pink, orange, turquoise, aqua, white, plum, orchid, emerald, sapphire, sangria, ocean, sage, fuchsia, lime, and color combinations.

Manufactured in China, the step stools were sold at HomeGoods, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and other retailers nationwide from January 2010 through January 2012. The price was $8 to $12.

Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled step stools and contact Kennedy International to receive a full refund, the company and commission advise.

For additional information, contact Kennedy International toll-free at (855) 270-8301 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or visit the firm's website at www.kennedy-intl.com.

For details on other recalls, see www.recalls.gov.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Baby boomers need to be aware of possible hearing loss as they get older and the importance of getting a hearing test

 

By Rita R. Robison 

Hearing loss affects nine million older adults in the United States today. It's one of the most common health problems in the country – but also one of the most under-diagnosed and undertreated. 

May is Better Hearing Awareness Month and Older Americans Month.

The National Council on Aging, with support from United Health Foundation, wants older adults to know about the signs of hearing loss and the importance of getting screened.

"One out of every four older Americans has undetected or untreated hearing loss, and NCOA's research has shown that most older adults with hearing loss do not realize how much the quality of their lives has been affected," Jim Firman, president and CEO of the council, said in a statement.  

"As someone with significant hearing loss, I can personally attest to how the right hearing aids have dramatically improved my ability to work and play, my relationships with family and friends, and my self-esteem,” Firman said. “We encourage all older adults and their families to take a hearing test and find out what they've been missing."

When people began to use hearing aids, many see improvements in their lives, including their family relationships, 66 percent; mental health, 36 percent; sense of independence, 34 percent; social life, 34 percent; and sex life, 8 percent, a council survey on hearing loss and older adults found. 

"In recent years, hearing aids have improved significantly because of digital technologies," he said. "Therefore, we think people who use hearing aids today will see even more significant improvements in their lives." 

To learn more, including what are some warning signs of hearing loss to look for, visit www.ncoa.org/HearingLoss.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

FTC charges company put more than $70 billion in bogus phone charges on consumers’ bills

By Rita R. Robison

The Federal Trade Commission is charging that the nation's largest third-party billing company placed more than $70 million in bogus "cramming" charges on consumers' phone bills in violation of a previous court order. The FTC is asking a federal court to make the company pay more than $52.6 million, the total amount that the company billed consumers and failed to refund.

The FTC alleges that Billing Services Group placed charges on nearly 1.2 million telephone lines on behalf of a serial phone crammer. The charges were supposedly for "enhanced services," such as voicemail and streaming video, which consumers never authorized or knew about.

"BSG made it possible for con artists to steal people's hard-earned money by placing charges on phone bills for services they never ordered or used," David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. "Under previous federal court orders, BSG cannot profit from the fraud of others and then deny responsibility for the harm they made possible."

Billing aggregators act as intermediaries between third-party vendors and the local phone companies by contracting to have the local telephone companies collect charges for the vendors' services from consumers. "Cramming" is the placement of unauthorized charges on phone bills.

In a contempt motion, the FTC said BSG failed to investigate either the highly deceptive marketing for the services or whether consumers used them. BSG kept billing for these services despite many complaints from consumers and after major telephone companies refused to do so, the FTC's motion said.

The FTC alleges that by putting the bogus charges on consumers' phone bills, BSG violated the terms of a 1999 settlement with the agency, which prohibits unauthorized billing, misrepresentations to consumers, and billing for vendors who fail to clearly disclose the terms of their services.

The contempt action is the FTC's fourth action on extensive cramming by BSG entities. In addition to the 1999 order, the FTC obtained two other cramming orders against BSG companies: Nationwide Connections Inc., which addressed $34.5 million in charges for collect calls that never occurred, and Enhanced Services Billing Inc., which addressed crammed charges for enhanced services.

From 2006 through 2010, BSG illegally billed consumers for nine crammed "enhanced services," including three voicemail services, one streaming video service, two identity theft protection services, two directory assistance services, and one job skills training service, according to the FTC's motion.

The FTC's contempt motion said that BSG billed tens of thousands of consumers for voicemail boxes each month from July 2009 through March 2010, but consumers used only 209 mailboxes during that time. The motion also stated that BSG billed more than 250,000 consumers for a streaming video service, but only 23 total movies were streamed, some of them by the crammers' employees.

Despite overwhelming evidence of cramming, BSG billed consumers more than $30 million for the voicemail services and more than $12 million for the video service, according to the FTC.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist