American Morning
H1N1: Life in the emergency room
Hospitals across the country have been hit hard by the H1N1 virus. Federal health officials recently said that nearly 4,000 people have died from the virus and around 22 million people have had it.
Drs. Sanjay Gupta, Becky Roberts, Christina Johns spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN's American Morning Friday about how emergency rooms have been affected by swine flu.
Basketball great Abdul-Jabbar has cancer
By Miriam Falco, CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the greatest college and professional basketball players of all time, says he has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer.
"I have chronic myeloid leukemia," Abdul-Jabbar told CNN. He said he received the diagnosis last December.
The 62-year-old former center for the Los Angeles Lakers said aside from having to see his doctor and checking his blood levels on a regular basis, having chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) hasn't significantly affected his quality of life.
Abdul-Jabbar said he's going public now to educate people about this disease.
"I think it's possible for someone in my position to help save lives," he said.
Ian's Law aims to close health insurance loophole
By Jim Acosta
It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while we get to do a story that has a real life-changing impact on somebody's life. Ian Pearl is one of those stories. He's the disabled man we profiled last month. Living on a respirator with muscular dystrophy, he was just weeks away from losing his health insurance.
His insurance company, Guardian, had canceled his coverage. Guardian had found a loophole in New York state law that allowed the company to drop his coverage as part of a slew of policies it had decided to dump. The Pearl family's lawyer showed us a Guardian company e-mail that had referred to Ian's policy as one of the "dogs." It was a reference to the fact that Ian's care costs a million dollars a year.
Well, one day after the story aired, the company reversed itself, apologized, and restored Ian's policy.
But the story doesn't end there. New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman has now announced legislation called "Ian's Law," which seeks to close that insurance loophole.
Because of Ian's condition, he couldn't make it to the news conference. But he appeared via video conference and announced his intention to see this law passed across the country and potentially on a national level.
Watch Ian speak at the news conference
One thing we didn't get to mention in our piece is that as a kid, Ian was a poster child for people with muscular dystrophy. He later became president of his high school.
Now Ian is a spokesman and leader once again, fighting for health care reforms that protect the disabled from a system that sometimes fails to safeguard this country's most vulnerable people.
Related: Insurance company does an about-face
Protect yourself from medical mistakes
By Danielle Dellorto
Hospitals and doctors make mistakes. It's something we don't like to think about, but it happens. Some scary examples I've come across: Minnesota doctors removed the healthy kidney of a cancer patient while leaving the diseased one behind; California doctors removed the appendix of the wrong patient; one of the most experienced surgeons in a Boston, Massachusetts, hospital operated on the wrong side of a patient. All of these mistakes happened within the past couple of years.
Rest assured, if you are the patient, you can help avoid such medical errors. Start by checking out your doctor and hospital. There are several websites that rank hospitals and physicians. Try HealthGrades.com or LeapFrogGroup.org. Tell the nurses and doctors who you are and why you're having surgery. You might feel a little silly, but giving your name, date of birth and for example, which hip you're having replaced – it bears repeating. Make sure your doctor – not someone else – initials your surgery site, then confirm that site with your physician right before your procedure. Finally, train someone to be your advocate. You're likely to be anxious and a little out of it, so be sure that friend or family member knows these important tips too.
For more tips on how to prevent medical errors, check out CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen’s Empowered Patient column.
Local health officials ‘policing’ H1N1 supply
With a shortage of the H1N1 vaccine, some local health officials are being forced to act as vaccine police. Health officials in Los Angeles County feel they need to question the masses of people waiting in line at public clinics to ascertain if patients have a real need for the vaccine.
Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health for Los Angeles County, is the county’s top public health official, and has worked those vaccine lines. He spoke to Alina Cho on CNN’s “American Morning” Thursday. Below is an edited transcript of that interview.
Alina Cho: Before we get to what's happening on the ground there, I want to remind our viewers – and some people may not know – you're vaccinating people on what's being called a priority list right now. Remind everybody, who should be standing in line to get the vaccine right now and who should wait.
Jonathan Fielding: Yes, the ones who should be in the priority groups are pregnant women or anybody caring for a child under six months of age, health care workers, emergency medical service workers, children and young adults from 6 months up through 24 years, and those 25 to 64 who have underlying conditions that would put them at higher risks for the complications of this H1N1 novel strain.
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