More Than A Quarter Of Child Deaths In Contra Costa Were ‘Probably Preventable,’ Report Finds
According to the report, infants accounted for roughly 65 percent of the county’s 78 child deaths in 2013, the last year of the study.
East Bay Times:
Report: Infants Account For Majority Of Contra Costa Child Deaths
County health officials are trying to raise awareness about safe infant sleeping habits, safe driving, and preventing kids from unsupervised access to guns, after a recently released report found more than a quarter of the deaths in 2013 were “probably preventable.” The 51-page report, compiled by a group of county officials and medical professionals, reached an unexpected finding: of the 21 preventable child deaths in 2013, 17 were females. The report’s authors, who found no explanation for the finding, wrote this was “aberrant” compared with their review of child deaths in the five previous years, “where there has been a preponderance of males.” (Gartrell, 2/28)
In other news from across the state —
Capital Public Radio:
Tech Helps Northern California's Vision-Impaired Gain Independence
An entire wall of the Society for the Blind store in Sacramento is stocked with the basics for vision assistance: oversized clocks, talking calculators and specially designed wallets, just to name a few. On the other side is a lineup of voice-controlled desktops and portable devices that can magnify text or say it aloud. Some have cameras that can photograph text and read it.Shari Roeseler, executive director for the Society for the Blind, said these all-in-one machines save people with vision problems from having to use a combination of iPads, Kindles and other devices that weren’t developed explicitly for this population. Earlier this month, the society teamed up with NorthState Assistive Technology in Chico to stock more “smart” items. (Caiola, 2/27)
Los Angeles Times:
Two Weight-Loss Surgeons Falsified Records, Defrauded Patients, Insurers Out Of $250 Million, Prosecutors Allege
For years, it was hard to miss the billboards and radio jingles for a weight-loss surgery center that promised, "Let your new life begin, call 1-800-GET-THIN. "But on Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged that the Lap-Band surgery operation was at the center of a massive fraud scheme that forced patients to undergo unnecessary tests, falsified medical tests to justify surgeries and cheated insurers and patients out of $250 million. (Winton, 2/28)