Home Improvements Can Help People Age Independently. But Medicare Seldom Picks Up the Bill.

Access is cost-effective for Medicare when it helps people stay in their homes

Joanne Kenen 

Chikao Tsubaki had been having a terrible time.

In his mid-80s, he had a stroke. Then lymphoma. Then prostate cancer. He was fatigued, isolated, not all that steady on his feet.

Then Tsubaki took part in an innovative care initiative that, over four months, sent an occupational therapist, a nurse, and a handy worker to his home to help figure out what he needed to stay safe. 

In addition to grab bars and rails, the handy worker built a bookshelf so neither Tsubaki nor the books he cherished would topple over when he reached for them.

Reading “is kind of the back door for my cognitive health — my brain exercise,” said Tsubaki, a longtime community college teacher. Now 87, he lives independently and walks a mile and a half almost every day.

The program that helped Tsubaki remain independent, called Community Aging in Place: Advancing Better Living for Elders, or CAPABLE, has been around for 15 years and is offered in about 65 places across 26 states. It helps people 60 and up, and some younger people with disabilities or limitations, who want to remain at home but have trouble with activities like bathing, dressing, or moving around safely. Several published studies have found the program saves money and prevents falls, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says contribute to the deaths of 41,000 older Americans and cost Medicare about $50 billion each year.

EDITOR'S NOTE: in Rhode Island, we have the Ocean State Center for Independent Living (OSCIL) that can help. CLICK HERE.   - W. Collette

Make America's Food Unsafe Again

Decision to axe advisory groups could spell trouble for US food safety

Shannon Kelleher 

A Trump administration move to axe key food safety advisory committees could leave the public more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses, critics fear, particularly alongside current legislative efforts to undermine proposed safety regulations on food processors.

The decision to cut the committees, which brought together academics, industry researchers and consumer advocates to advise agencies on food safety, comes after hospitalizations and deaths from foodborne illnesses more than doubled last year, with most illnesses attributed to the same harmful pathogens that the groups were working to address. 

And it comes less than a month after Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would block the implementation of a proposed new regulatory framework for reducing Salmonella contamination in raw poultry that was introduced under former President Joe Biden.

“It doesn’t appear that this administration at the highest level seems to care about food safety,” said Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist for the group Consumer Reports who was serving on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF).

Quack Doctor Oz on track to run Medicare and Medicaid

King Donald appoints another 'Profoundly Unqualified' to head vital agency

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Progressive watchdog organizations responded to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz by again sounding the alarm about the heart surgeon and former television host nominated to lead a key federal healthcare agency.

Since President Donald Trump announced Oz as his nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last November, opponents have spotlighted the doctor's promotion of unproven products, investments in companies with interests in the federal agency, and support for expanding Medicare Advantage during an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run in 2022.

Former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino sticks up for Elon Musk

Rhode Islanders protest outside the Tesla Showroom and Service Center in Providence

Steve Ahlquist

Frustration with Donald Trump and Elon Musk continues to boil over into protest. On March 16, 35 people protested outside the Tesla Showroom and Service Center at 77 Reservoir Ave in Providence. I heard about the protest after the fact from organizers Ashley and Kristen, who supplied me with a short video and a statement:

“This protest was a grassroots effort that was very easy to organize because no one voted for Elon Musk, and we will not stand idly by while he dismantles our government,” said Ashley and Kristen, who helped organize the protest outside the Tesla dealership in Providence. “On what authority is this billionaire firing federal employees and restructuring our systems? Congress, an equal branch of government, is inept and an active participant in this takeover of our government - this coup.

“The executive branch is refusing to follow court orders, and they are installing overt fascists in every level of our government. So, we the people, organized to rise up to protect the democracy and civil rights that our government has refused to do. We will not stand by while an unelected billionaire and a group of oligarchs steal our money and destroy our rights and systems. We, the people, resist. As long as Elon Musk focuses his energy on this effort instead of his businesses, he can expect us to focus on him and his businesses.”

Here’s the video, followed by more pictures from journalist Phil Eil: Tesla Protest in Providence - March 16, 2025

Paolina at the podium. Photo by Steve Ahlquist

Former Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr. is the man responsible for bringing Tesla to Providence in 2023. I attended the opening of the service center. Tesla employees were forbidden from speaking to the press at the event, so I asked the former Mayor (Tesla’s landlord in Providence) about Elon Musk’s terrible record on labor relations.¹ Note that this all happened in 2023, years before Elon Musk started giving Nazi salutes:

Steve Ahlquist: Tesla has a bad record of employee relations and union busting. Does that worry you at all?

Joseph Paolino: Not a bit.

Make America Great Again - sort of

Elon giveth and he taketh it away

Pell Bridge among 68 federal transportation board recommends for risk assessment

Could be vulnerable to the kind of accident that brought down Baltimore's Key Bridge

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Federal transportation officials are recommending that the Pell Bridge undergo a vulnerability assessment to determine its overall risk of collapse should it get hit by a large ship.

The bridge connecting Newport and Jamestown is one of 68 bridges across the country flagged for evaluation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in a report released Thursday as part of its ongoing investigation of the March 2024 collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge (image to thee left).

Scientists Have Discovered Shocking Amounts of Microplastics in the Brain – And It Could Be Increasing Our Risk of Dementia

A spoonful of plastic makes your memory go down

By Genomic Press

New research shows alarming microplastic accumulation in human
brains, with significantly higher levels in individuals with dementia,
prompting experts to urge exposure reduction strategies and urgent
research into long-term health effects. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

In a comprehensive commentary published in Brain Medicine, researchers highlight alarming new evidence of microplastic accumulation in human brain tissue, offering critical insights into potential health implications and prevention strategies.

This commentary examines findings from a groundbreaking Nature Medicine article by Nihart et al. (2025) on the bioaccumulation of microplastics in the brains of deceased individuals.

The research reveals that human brains contain approximately a spoonful of microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs), with levels three to five times higher in individuals with documented dementia diagnoses. Even more concerning, brain tissue exhibited MNP concentrations seven to thirty times higher than those found in other organs, such as the liver or kidneys.

5 years of COVID-19 underscore value of coordinated efforts to manage disease – while CDC, NIH and WHO face threats to their ability to respond to a crisis

How will we cope with the next pandemic as President Musk chain-saws public health and medical research?

Katherine A. Foss, Middle Tennessee State University

Five years ago, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus, dubbed SARS-CoV-2, began as a “cluster of severe pneumonia cases of unknown cause” reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It had spread to 118,000 cases reported in 114 countries by March 11.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general at the time, said in a media briefing that day that “the WHO is deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.” He urged leaders to move quickly to scale up their emergency responses, saying that “all countries can still change the course of this pandemic.”

Public health agencies like the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention played critical roles throughout the pandemic in coordinating with local health departments to detect, trace and test for the virus. 

The WHO and CDC websites received unprecedented traffic as they became invaluable go-to sources for the most up-to-date resources on means of prevention, case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. The National Institutes of Health was instrumental in its development of COVID-19 treatments and contributions to vaccine research.

Now, five years later, the Trump administration has cut more than 5,000 employees at the NIH and the CDC combined, and is withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO.

At the same time, the U.S. is facing outbreaks of tuberculosis, a resurgence of measles among unvaccinated communities, and the worst flu season in 15 years.

Much of the work of the WHO, CDC and other public health agencies occurs behind the scenes, only occasionally drawing public attention. To put these roles into perspective, it can be helpful to examine public health before these unifying entities existed.

In February 2025, the Trump administration laid off nearly 1,300 CDC workers, or 10% of its workforce. Some of those firings have since been rescinded.

National Cancer Institute Employees Can’t Publish Information on These Topics Without Special Approval

Why bother publishing since the Trump regime doesn't believe in science

By Annie Waldman and Lisa Song for ProPublica

Employees at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, received internal guidance last week to flag manuscripts, presentations or other communications for scrutiny if they addressed “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” topics. Among the 23 hot-button issues, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica: vaccines, fluoride, peanut allergies, autism.

While it’s not uncommon for the cancer institute to outline a couple of administration priorities, the scope and scale of the list is unprecedented and highly unusual, said six employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. All materials must be reviewed by an institute “clearance team,” according to the records, and could be examined by officials at the NIH or its umbrella agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Staffers and experts worried that the directive would delay or halt the publication of research. “This is micromanagement at the highest level,” said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

The list touches on the personal priorities of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has repeatedly promoted medical conspiracy theories and false claims. He has advanced the idea that rising rates of autism are linked to vaccines, a claim that has been debunked by hundreds of scientific studies. 

He has also suggested that aluminum in vaccines is responsible for childhood allergies (his son reportedly is severely allergic to peanuts). And he has claimed that water fluoridation — which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called “one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century” — is an “industrial waste.”

I'm not surprised at all

Save money. Cut SpaceX

Trump Officials Deport Brown University Doctor, Seemingly Defying Court Order

Trump Administration didn't approve of her religious beliefs, accused her of supporting terrorism

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout

The Trump administration is openly defying court orders blocking deportations of immigrants without due process — even going so far as to tout the deportations that are throwing countless people’s lives into chaos across the country.

This weekend, the Trump administration deported Brown University assistant professor and surgeon Rasha Alawieh to Lebanon, despite a Massachusetts court having ordered the administration not to remove her from the state that same day. Alawieh has a valid H-1B visa, court documents say, and has lived in the U.S. since 2018, where she finished her medical certification.

According to a court filing filed by her cousin on Friday, Alawieh was traveling back to the U.S. from her home country of Lebanon, where she was visiting family last month, when officials detained her “without any justification,” denying her access to legal counsel at Boston Logan International Airport. The U.S. District Court in Massachusetts ordered her not to be removed without at least 48 hours’ notice while the judge considered her case — but officials deported her anyway.

On Sunday, the judge filed another order saying that there was evidence that law enforcement agents had “willfully” disobeyed the court’s order, as “supported by a detailed and specific timeline in an under-oath affidavit filed by an attorney,” and has ordered the administration to respond to these “serious allegations.”

Lawyer Thomas Brown, who is representing Alawieh and Brown Medicine, has expressed confusion as to why officials deported the doctor. “We are at a loss as to why this happened,” said Brown in a statement. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”

ADDED NOTE: Steve Ahlquist at RIFuture.org spoke with one of Dr. Alawieh's colleague at Brown about what her loss means to Rhode Island:

Steve Ahlquist: How does Dr. Alawieh’s absence affect medical care in Rhode Island?

Dr. Paul Morrissey: She works in the Division of Organ Transplant. Three medical doctors do her work, and the other two will work hard to compensate for Rasha’s loss. It’s a very busy division. We take care of over 800 patients in Rhode Island, and she will be deeply missed. Her absence will have a strong and negative impact on our division.

What is a SLAPP suit?

Legal experts explain how these lawsuits suppress free speech

Jennifer Safstrom, Vanderbilt University and Ryan Riedmueller, Vanderbilt University

EDITOR'S NOTE: in the article immediately preceding this, there's a prime example of a SLAPP suit brought by South County Health against critics of South County Hospital's management. A total disgrace.  - Will Collette

Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits, are civil claims brought against people or organizations who voice opinions publicly. These lawsuits are intended to intimidate opponents and suppress advocacy efforts by forcing critics to spend time and money on expensive litigation.

The term “SLAPP suit” was coined by law professor George W. Pring and sociologist Penelope Canan in their 1996 book “SLAPPS: Getting Sued for Speaking Out.” The authors provided examples of SLAPPs filed in response to advocacy on many issues, including civil rights, environmental preservation, consumer protection and women’s rights.

SLAPP suits often exploit power and financial imbalances. Responding to lawsuits is expensive. Lawyers are pricey, and so are court costs and litigation expenses, such as collecting evidence, interviewing potential witnesses and purchasing specialized software to manage electronic data.

Lawsuits also are mentally and emotionally taxing. Requirements such as disclosing documents, making court appearances and being subject to questioning can make heavy demands on participants’ time and attention. Litigation can last for years.

These burdens, or even the prospect of them, can have a chilling effect on free speech.

EDITOR'S NOTE: While the authors' description of the methodology behind SLAPP suits is accurate, their history is not. When I was organizing director for the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes (now called the Center for Health and Environmental Justice) starting in 1986, SLAPP suits against grassroots leaders became a significant problem. 

The first case I handled was that of Irene Mansfield in Pearland TX who was sued for $10 million by a local polluter for calling the polluter's landfill "a dump." Her husband was sued for the same amount for "failure to control his wife." I discussed strategy with Drs. Pring and Canan - they had already made their bones with their early research on SLAPPs as well as for inventing the term in the early 80s (not 1996). 

I generally advised grassroots leaders facing SLAPP suits to go as public as possible, and Irene's case was an example. The suit was dropped after I helped get Irene and retired Plaquemines Parish, LA school teacher Ann Williams on ABC's Inside Edition. I described these and other cases in a citizens' guide I wrote in 1989 called "The Polluters' Secret Plan and What YOU Can Do to Mess It Up."    - Will Collette

After winning a legal battle involving a coal executive and a giant squirrel, John Oliver, host of ‘Last Week Tonight,’ explains how SLAPP suits are designed to stifle public debate.

Save South County Hospital holds Special Meeting April 3

Organization fights on to change hospital management despite SLAPP suit 

Chris Van Hemelrijck, MD, Save South County Hospital

As a member and acting spokesperson for Dr. Steven Fera of Save South County Hospital, while he is away, I want to inform you that new, highly consequential developments are occurring.

I have included below the newspaper advertisement for an April 3 meeting aimed at action toward making changes in the South County Hospital Board of Trustees. 

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the South Kingstown High School Auditorium. Former Hospital Board of Trustees Chairs Eve Keenan, Dennis Lynch and Chris Little will lead the meeting.

As you may know, the hospital sued to silence our public commentary, made a baseless claim concerning donor issues, and disparaged Claudia Swain, an upstanding, tireless and dedicated community servant, with blatant false accusations. 

Here is Save South County Hospital's response to the desperate moves by the South County Hospital Board of Trustees, along with its Chairman Joseph Matthews, CEO Aaron Robinson and others in the administration supporting them. Continue to read the text of the statement.