Bills would require more assessment before a patient can be admitted to a personal-care home

Legislation dubbed "Larry's Law" is aimed at preventing what happened to Larry Lee from happening again.

House Bill 307, filed by Democratic Rep. Terry Mills, right, "would require an individual to be examined and assessed by a medical professional before admission to a personal care home, and it would require further assessment of the degree of disability for an individual with an acquired brain injury who was being considered for placement," report Valarie Honeycutt Spears and Beth Musgrave of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Senate Bill 115, filed by Republican Sen. Jimmy Higdon, left, would require that a potential resident be evaluated by a mental health professional before someone is admitted to a personal care home, a cost that would be picked up by the state. Higdon and Mills are both from Lebanon, where Larry Lee lived until he went to Falmouth Nursing Home in Pendleton County.

In August, Lee, right, disappeared from the home, one of 82 free-standing personal care homes in Kentucky. Lee, who had a brain injury from childhood, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and diabetes. He was found dead four week after his disappearance on the banks of the Licking River, which flows through Falmouth.

A pre-admission assessment "is the only thing that we found that could have saved Larry Lee," Higdon said. "His condition was too severe. He should have never been in a personal care home." (Read more)

Police make second raid in a year at pain clinic in Paintsville

As lawmakers wrestle with what to do about prescription pill abuse in Kentucky, law enforcement continues to crack down on so-called "pill mills."

For the second time in less than a year, officers descended upon Care More Pain Management in Paintsville last Wednesday, arresting 29 people outside the clinic. "The raid was part of an ongoing investigation by Attorney General Jack Conway's office and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration into doctors who allegedly over-prescribe pain medications," report R.G. Dunlop and Laura Ungar of The Courier-Journal.

"We're been looking forward to this day for almost as long as I've been in office," five years, said Paintsville Mayor Bob Porter. "Hopefully, other people will think twice before they try to get into this business."

Dr. Richard Albert, who had practiced at the clinic, was arrested last Feb. 16 and pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to illegally prescribe about 50,000 Percocet tablets. Conway's office believes Albert was prescribing about 100,000 pills a month and seeing about 55 patients per day. (Read more)

USDA issues new school lunch rules; not as broad as first written, but will make meals healthier

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released new, finalized requirements that will make school lunch a healthier meal for students.

The guidelines will mean:

• Students will be given both fruit and vegetables every school day.

• More foods will be made with whole grains.

• Students will be offered only fat-free or low-fat milk.

• Calories will be limited by portion size, based on the age of children being served.

• There will be less saturated fat and trans-fats in the food served.

• The amount of sodium will decrease gradually over the next 10 years.

Though the changes represent the first school-lunch overhaul in 15 years, they are not as comprehensive as the Obama administration initially wanted them to be. A bill passed late last year "would require the department to allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now," reports Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press. "The initial draft of the department's guidelines, released a year ago, would have prevented that." Congress also kept USDA from limiting potatoes to two servings a week. Potato farmers and frozen-pizza companies lobbied hard against those proposals, some conservatives said the government shouldn't be telling children what to eat, and some school districts said the changes were too broad and too expensive.

Some of the changes will be incorporated by September, and others will be phased in. The changes affect lunches that are subsidized by the federal government in the National School Lunch Program, which serves 32 million children. Participation rates are very high in Kentucky. The Covington and Owsley County school districts have the highest percentage of students — 88 percent — eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Magoffin County has the second highest with 86 percent followed by Newport (85 percent); Bell County (83 percent); and West Point Independent in Hardin County (81 percent). (Read more)

The changes are aimed in part at curbing childhood obesity. That has also been the target of measure to limit junk food in schools, which have been called into question. A recent study of almost 20,000 students found no link between junk food at school and weight gain in children. "The researchers examined the children's weight and found that in the eighth grade, 35.5 percent of kids in schools with junk food were overweight while 34.8 percent of those in schools without it were overweight — a statistically insignificant increase," reports Benjamin Radford of Discovery News. (Read more)

Free seminar on guardianship to be offered Feb. 26 in Lexington

Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform will provide the opportunity to learn from experts about guardianship Feb. 26. More than 23,000 Kentuckians live in nursing homes.

Lexington attorneys Carolyn Kenton and Robert McClelland will speak, along with Virgiel Clayton, director of the Division of Guardianship in the Department of Aging and Independent Living.

The seminar, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Tates Creek Branch of the Lexington Public Library. For more information, click here.

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