Hot Topics

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“Hot Topics” after the jump…

Last June, during a medical appointment, a patient named “Sgt. X” secretly recorded an Army psychologist at Fort Carson, Colo., saying that he was under pressure not to diagnose combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

A study on obsessive-compulsive disorder is showing that Utahns appear to suffer from moral-based OCD more than anywhere else in the country. The comment boards ignite.

F*&k you if you have never had cancer!

More than a dozen children with disabilities paired up with experienced hunters and learned how to, uh, shoot turkeys. Nine prize turkeys later…

The Canadian Mental Health Association office in Red Deer, Alberta has opened an employment program that will hire part-time workers with disabilities to clean exteriors and interiors for local businesses. According to an article in the Red Deer Advocate, it’s a win-win situation: “People with disabilities will have the chance to mop up some cash.”

The controversy regarding the text-to-speech function offered by Amazon.com’s Kindle 2 digital book reader appears to be heating up again. The story goes Crip Chronicles. The story goes HuffPo.

Despite being born with Spinal Atrophy, Hisham Mohammad has a zest for life. He explains why Rick Hansen is one of his heroes.

Mobi-Mat might just be the greatest product…ever.

Kenny, the indomitable blogger behind The Traveling Wheelchair, swings by T.G.I.Fridays in Braintree, MA for lunch. 4/5 stars for wheelchair accessibility. “To earn the Fifth Star, they would simply need to install an automatic entry door so a person in a wheelchair can independently enter the restaurant.”

1800Wheelchair.com will award a $500 scholarship to an American high school or undergraduate student (16 years+) on June 30, 2009. The scholarship is open to students with a GPA of at least 3.0. Click here to read the essay question.

Dubbed ”Project PUMA,” the pimped-out two-wheeler is electrically powered and seats two adults: Introducing the 35mph wheelchair. Rush Limbaugh’s wolves pick up the scent.

Puppies Behind Bars teaches prison inmates to train puppies to become service dogs for the disabled and explosive detection canines for law enforcement.

About 75 people demonstrated Tuesday outside a CVS pharmacy in East Los Angeles, calling on the store to change its practice of storing condoms in a locked display case and behind the counter.

A five-in-one ”polypill” that may cut a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease by 50 to 60 percent was well-tolerated by participants in the first study to evaluate the pill in humans.

The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot, and the social worker’s son is always getting bitten.

Most businesses don’t make safety errors every 1.7 minutes. But then again, most businesses aren’t hospitals.

A Human Rights Watch report revealed that the Los Angeles Police Department, county sheriff’s office and other smaller agencies have failed to test DNA evidence in more than 12,000 sexual assault cases in Los Angeles County. The L.A. Sheriff’s Department also has 4,700 untested rape kits, which potentially contain DNA evidence taken from sexual assault victims.

President Karzai underestimated the global attention that legalizing rape in Afghanistan would cause.

A $1.6 million settlement has been reached with two Southern California hospitals accused of improperly discharging and dumping as many as 150 psychiatric patients on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, an area on the east side of downtown where thousands of homeless people live.

The Philadelphia Zoo is hiring for the new season, and the zoo wants to make sure that the homeless get a fair shot in applying for jobs.

In June, the California Coastal Commission is scheduled to take public testimony before deciding whether to approve a city proposal to establish five overnight parking districts in and near Venice Beach, California that would prevent people from sleeping in their vehicles.

The city of Laguna Beach prides itself on its tolerance: residents serve meals to the homeless in neighborhood parks, and painted parking meters collect change to help them. But according to the American Civil Liberties Union, Laguna Beach authorities violate homeless people’s constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act by awakening them from sleep to interrogate, search or cite them.

The city of Gainesville, Florida has restrictions for feeding the homeless…including a “no feed zone” around the University of Florida and limits on the number of meals organizations may serve per day.

As the deepening recession endangers countless conventional newspapers, circulation is rising at papers sold by the homeless.

On a No. 2 train heading to Brooklyn one evening last week, a disheveled man stepped onto the car and began a speech with that phrase familiar to all New York subway riders: “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen!” But instead of asking for money outright, he held up a white plastic bag and offered sandwiches to any homeless, hungry people on the train that day.

Satre Stuelke, a third-year medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, is putting everyday objects into a CT scanner and producing works of art.

Australian Harper’s Bazaar proves big is definitely beautiful.

TIME Magazine asks: Is Vegetarianism a Teen Eating Disorder?

Mary Pipher interviewed on Santa Fe, New Mexico’s longest running daily Talkshow (scroll to 36:01). Mary Pipher gets praised. Mary Pipher’s book Reviving Ophelia gets adapted for the stage.

New website to help men with bulimia.

Oscar-winning actor Jim Broadbent appears in an internet video, remembering how he coped upon learning his mom had Alzheimer’s, and challenging the British government to take urgent action on dementia research.

Steve Schlozman practices adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, teaches at Harvard Medical School, and contributes to prestigious academic journals—all of which translates into yawns from his Beyonce-loving daughter. On April 13th, Schlozman will introduce the kitschy 1968 horror film, “Night of the Living Dead.”

Was Mary Todd Lincoln bipolar? Was George Frideric Handel a binge-eater? Was Agatha Christie suffering from Alzheimer’s? Was Scarlett O’Hara a…feminist?

A pet dog that fell overboard on a sailing trip has been returned home after surviving four months on a remote Australian island.

Ten-year-old Michael Giangregorio stood before a gymnasium filled with students to say that it can be tough having a little brother. It’s even tougher because his brother, Nicholas, 8, has autism.

Known as Sensory Friendly Films, AMC Entertainment has been showing featured movies around the country since 2008 for autistic children, who may become agitated due to hypersensitivity to light or sound.

Circus classes in San Francisco for visually and hearing impaired teens and young adults.

Mark Wetzel cannot tell you exactly what his wife or children look like. He can tell you how to hit a 95-mile-per-hour fastball.

Facebook works with American Foundation for the Blind to improve web accessibility. Glenda Watson Hyatt weighs in.

How can blind and visually impaired people access the latest touchscreen phones that don’t have buttons you can feel? TV Raman, Google’s blind technologist, demonstrates techniques on the Google G1 smartphone. Stevie Wonder might soon be able to cross yet another item off his “wishlist of devices.”

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