AMY PAULIN IN THE NEWS
Friday, September 26, 2008
New Laws Will Identify Cancer Clusters, Help Exploited Youth
By Cara Matthews [Press & Sun Bulletin]
ALBANY -- Gov. David Paterson signed bills today to provide crisis intervention for exploited youth, require more detailed cancer-incidence mapping, and promote "green" building in New York.
Also today, the governor vetoed 39 pieces of legislation. Among them were bills that would have prevented insurance carriers from denying health coverage to drunk drivers who are injured and authorized additional adult day-care slots in several counties.
Legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh, Westchester County, and Sen. Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton, requires more detailed tracking of cancer cases in New York. This will be accomplished by getting more information from patients, such as work histories and places of residences, and mapping factories and industrial facilities. The goal is to make potential connections between cancer and patients' environment.
"We now have a historic first-in-the-nation kind of effort here that will only help focus resources on these bizarre, suspicious cancer clusters around the state," Brodsky said.
Some areas with concentrations of cancer are random, but others are a result of environmental factors, he said.
About 100,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year in New York, according to the state Health Department. That agency tracks rates by county, and by ZIP code for some types of cancer. The new law will require breaking down numbers by census tract.
Some groups, like the American Cancer Society, have criticized the bill, saying it could be misleading because it will show where people live when they are diagnosed. They may have been exposed to cancer-causing agents elsewhere, or their cancer could have been triggered by other factors, such as genetics, diet and smoking. Cancers can take dozens of years from the date of exposure to a cancer-causing agent to appear.
Others say the legislation could infringe on patient privacy.
Another one of the roughly 75 bills Paterson signed today enacts the "Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act," which requires local school districts to provide exploited youth with crisis intervention and community-based services. Children arrested for prostitution or other illegal acts of a sexual nature enter the criminal-justice system and are considered juvenile delinquents.
"For too long, we have been disciplining young children who are the victims of brutal sexual exploitation instead of providing them with the necessary services to reintegrate them into society and ensure they receive adequate crisis intervention," Paterson said in a statement.
The governor approved two bills that promote "green" building. One sets up a residential building grant program and the other requires state buildings to comply with green building principles, such as using renewable or energy-efficient power generation systems.
The governor vetoed legislation to repeal the state's Alcohol Exclusion law, which permits insurance carriers to deny coverage when people are injured because they were driving while intoxicated or driving under the influence.
Sponsors of the bill said there is no evidence that current law deters drunken driving. Rather, they said, health-care providers who are ethically obligated to treat and care for people in need are left footing the bill. The bill included a provision to let insurers recover medical-care payments made on behalf of individuals who are found guilty of DWI or DUI.
In a statement today, the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Emergency Physicians, state Medical Society and other groups said the bill "would have removed a gross inequity" in the state's No-Fault law and eliminated "the disincentives to providers to more routinely test for the presence of alcohol."
Paterson vetoed five bills that would have authorized additional adult day-care slots in counties around the state, including Tompkins County.
The governor signed legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, Westchester County, to create a statewide education and outreach program for consumers and health providers on the benefits and potential dangers of birthing procedures. The percentage of cesarean births has more than quadrupled in the United States. It was 31.7 percent in New York three years ago, more than twice what is recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization.
"I am particularly concerned that women do not have sufficient information to make an informed decision on how or even where to give birth," Paulin said in a statement.
Paterson also signed bills to:
- Allow HMOs and health insurers to establish wellness programs;
- Reduce the deposit required on beer kegs from $75 to $50;
- Allow immigrants to receive domestic-violence services;
- Prohibit the practice of zone pricing for motor fuel by wholesalers;
- Establish the crime of disturbance of a funeral or memorial service;
- Require the state to set up guidelines for housing sex offenders to prevent "over concentrations" in the community;
- Set up a state public-information program on the proper disposal of drugs;
- Establish a New York State Center for Rural Schools at Cornell University. Some of the issues the new center will address are how to recruit and keep qualified teachers and how to meet students' health needs. Cornell University officials believe the center will be the only one of its kind in the country.