Miller steps down as secretary of embattled state Cabinet for Health and Family Services

The head of the much-beleaguered Cabinet for Health and Family Services has resigned. One of the first appointments of Gov. Steve Beshear, Secretary Janie Miller will step down Feb. 29 after four years in office.

Under her leadership, Miller has been overseeing the transition to managed care of 560,000 Medicaid recipients. The system has prompted many complaints about late payments. Under Miller's watch, the cabinet lost several legal battles with the state's largest newspapers over records of child-abuse deaths and near deaths.

In December, Sen. Julie Denton, R-Louisville, asked Miller to step down, saying the cabinet "treats everyone as an adversary." Beshear said in a press release that Miller has done "extraordinary work in an especially difficult time. "Her efforts to provide health insurance for children, to implement wellness strategies, and move more than half a million Kentuckians to a managed care health system in less than a year were enormous tasks," he said. "Her work has paved the way for generations of healthier Kentuckians."

In addition to the move to managed care, under Miller's leadership the cabinet has overseen improvement at Oakwood in Somerset and replaced infrastructure at aging state facilities, including Eastern State Hospital. And it has enrolled more than 60,000 children in the Kentucky Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid, Beshear said.

"I have been blessed with a long and fulfilling career in public service," Miller said in a statement. "During these last four years during one of the country's worst economic recessions, we have continued to move forward by looking to the future, with creativity and focus on alignment, integration and partnership across many sectors to improve the lives of vulnerable populations. I have been privileged to serve with CHFS employees who are some of the most dedicated, committed individuals in state government. I am excited about the future." (Read more)

The truth about Mechanically Separated Meat

Teen girl rushed to hospital for eating nothing but chicken nuggets for 15 years

(NaturalNews) If you ate only McDonald's chicken McNuggets every day for practically every meal, what do you think your health condition would be like in 15 years? One British girl, 17-year-old Stacey Irvine, recently found out the hard way that such a diet severely destroyed her health when she was rushed to the hospital after collapsing and having severe difficulty breathing.

Yahoo! Newsreports that the young factory worker had been eating practically nothing else besides McDonald's chicken McNuggets since she was about two years old. Shockingly, Stacey has also never once eaten a single fruit or vegetable, according to the same report, which has left her grossly deficient in practically every single vitamin and mineral in existence.

This horrific diet finally caught up with Stacey, however, when she fell over at work and had to be rushed to the emergency room. Doctors discovered severely-swelled veins on the young girl's tongue, and quickly diagnosed her with anemia. They subsequently put her on an "emergency vitamin regimen," according to reports, and warned her that if she does not change her dietary habits, she will soon die.

But Stacey's addiction to fast food nuggets is so severe that she still apparently refuses to eat anything else besides them, except for the occasional piece of toast or potato chips. And Stacey's mom, Evonne, has apparently tried everything to get her daughter to eat other foods, including starving the girl at one point, but to no avail.

"She's been told in no uncertain terms that she'll die if she carries on like this," Evonne is quoted as saying byCBS News. "But she says she can't eat anything else. I'm at my wit's end. I'm praying she can be helped before it's too late."

McDonald's chicken McNuggets, of course, are made from a so-called food product called "mechanically separated chicken," which is created from chickens that have been "stripped down to the bone, and then 'ground up' into a chicken mash, then combined with a variety of stabilizers and preservatives, pressed into familiar shapes, breaded and deep fried, freeze dried, and then shipped to a McDonald's near you."

A horrifying picture of mechanically separated chicken:

McDonald's chicken McNuggets also contain dimethylpolysiloxane, an antifoaming agent composed of the same silicone chemicals used in cosmetic products (http://www.naturalnews.com/032820_Chicken_McNuggets_ingredients.html). A federal judge put it well back in 2003 when he called McNuggets a "McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook."

Sources for this article include:
http://health.yahoo.net
http://www.cbsnews.com

First showing of 'Remaking Rural Health' is tonight on KET; focuses on people who are making a difference

The spotlight often shines on rural Kentuckians' alarming health problems, but far less attention goes to the people in those communities who are making a difference. "Remaking Rural Health: A KET Special Report" focuses on the advocates who are making inroads in improving conditions in these areas. The first airing of the report is at 9 p.m. Eastern Time tonight.

The report focuses on the expanded use of nurse practitioners, specifically those at Alliance Coal LLC, where a team of practitioners, overseen by Dr. Raymond Wells, run on-site clinics at seven mine sites in the state. It also looks at people like Dr. Phillip Bale of Glasgow who are focused on prevention. Bale runs one of the only "prevention clinics" in the state, spending nearly 30 minutes with each of his patients to identify risks for conditions like heart disease.

With boots on the ground, the goal of the University of Kentucky Rural Cancer Prevention project is to promote prevention by increasing testing and screening for four major cancers, educating through the use of Facebook and text messaging, and having advocates go to places like Walmart to reach out to people.

Awareness is another focus of these advocates. In Montgomery County, the Hispanic population prompted the health department to start the Promotora Program, in which leaders of the Hispanic community are trained in health issues in order to share their knowledge with members of the community. And the Hazard-Perry County Community Foundation aims to build health values in the community to try to change health outcomes.

The report will air again at 10 p.m. EST Monday, Feb. 13, and will be available online. For more information, click here.

2 out of 3 Kentuckians disposing of prescription drugs improperly, poll finds

By Tara Kaprowy
Kentucky Health News

At a summit on prescription drug abuse last week, Attorney General Jack Conway spoke of experiences he's had talking to middle schoolers about prescription drugs. When he asks if they know someone who has tried drugs that haven't been prescribed to them, 70 to 80 percent of hands go up. But when asked to keep their hands up if their parents keep their medicine cabinets locked, "all hands go down," Conway said. "This is a problem that is starting in our homes," he said. "It's a culture we have to break."

Not only are most medicine cabinets not locked, they are usually not cleaned out in the proper way, according to the latest Kentucky Health Issues Poll. Sixty-five percent of Kentucky adults dispose of prescription drugs by throwing them away (37 percent) or flushing them down the drain (28 percent). Only 6 percent take them to a recycling center and just 4 percent take them to a government or police facility where they can be safety discarded — though those are the two methods of disposal recommended by the Food and Drug Administration.

The drugs that are thrown in the garbage or flushed down the drain eventually reach the water supply, posing potential harm to people and wildlife. In a 2008 inquiry, The Associated Press found trace amounts of antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones in the drinking water of 24 major U.S. metropolitan areas, including Louisville. Though the concentrations were tiny, "the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences of human health," AP reported.

The Health Issues Poll found that nearly 50 percent of respondents aged 18-29 threw unused or expired prescriptions in the trash. That percentage steadily decreases as people get older, with just 23 percent of people 65 and older likewise trashing the drugs, though they were more likely to flush them down the drain (33 percent). Education levels do not seem to be a factor.

The FDA recommends disposal through take-back programs, which offer locations for people to bring unused or expired drugs. The next National Drug Take Back Day will be April 28. On the last Take Back Day, 377,086 pounds of unwanted or expired drugs were turned in. Also, Kentucky has 76 drop boxes in 46 counties (yellow on map; counties with pending sites in blue) where people can dispose of drugs. To find a listing of these drop box locations, click here.

The poll was funded by The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati and the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. It was conducted Sept. 27 to Oct. 27 by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. A random sample of adults across Kentucky were interviewed, including 1,313 landline interviews and 308 cell-phone interviews. For more information about the findings, click here.

Broad front of officials, health-care leaders hold press conference to promote fighting Rx drug abuse

Representing a united front, policymakers from both sides of the political aisle, law enforcement, medical officials and other leaders stood by Gov. Steve Beshear Monday in support of attacking the state's prescription drug abuse problem head-on with legislation. (Courier-Journal photo by Tyler Bissmeyer)

"If ever there was a Kentucky issue, this is it," Beshear said.

Among others, Beshear was flanked by Attorney General Jack Conway, Dr. Preston Nunnelley, president of the state Board of Medical Licensure, and House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, who last week introduced sweeping legislation that would require prescribers to use the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system; shift KASPER responsibilities to Conway's office; and require that pain-management clinics be owned by licensed health practitioners.

A bill introduced by Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, aims at making sure the 77 pain clinics in the state be owned by licensed practitioners; now, 33 of them don't. Higdon was also present at the rally Monday and feels "it doesn't matter who gets credit for the legislation — a strong bill needs to be passed," reports the C-J's Laura Ungar.

State Sen. Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, gave heartfelt testimony about people in his life who were battling prescription drug abuse, including a friend's nice and his cousin's daughter. He's also been approached by people in his district begging for help, including a man who stopped him while he was buying groceries. "He said, 'I buried my son in December because of prescription drug abuse. Y'all need to do something about that.'"

He called the issue "the worst problem this state has," adding, "It affects families, it affects business, it affects insurance, it affects productivity."

Stumbo said, "If your family has not been affected by this scourge, you should go home and get on your knees and pray to your God."

Each month, on average, more than 80 Kentuckians die from drug overdoses, more than from traffic accidents. Beshear said fighting the problem is one of his top priorities. "We want to make absolutely sure these bills get the attention they deserve in this session," he said. "... We won't solve (the pill problem), but we're gonna make an aggressive push toward radically reducing" it. (Read more)

To view KET's "Legislative Update" showing highlights of the press conference, click here.