…albeit minor. The AMA is taking on pharmacists’ “moral objections” to filling doctors’ scripts:
The American Medical Association has decided to use its clout to ensure pharmacists’ moral objections don’t block patients’ access to needed medicine, including emergency contraceptives.
The action during the A-M-A’s meeting today in Chicago was prompted by complaints from several physicians’ groups about the growing number of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for contraceptives they consider a form of abortion.
…and a little bonus for those of you who made it this far: an unusually blunt editorial on mental health from the Carlisle Sentinel:
Our services here in Pennsylvania are being reduced. The much-talked-about moves to integrated community care have been improperly coordinated, funded or advanced for years. What care has been provided usually is for very specific types of cases, but the personnel providing care — many of whom are required to have advanced degrees — have been poorly paid.
We don’t have enough psychiatrists. We have criminalized some of the mentally ill. We have turned them into street people through our oh-so-specific rules and lack of care facilities. We have treated mental illness as if it were an orphan of physical illness when it has become evident chemical balances can be involved.
We have crossed the street to get away from any image of that dirty person pushing a packed cart and talking to him- or herself. We have sneaked out of town to get counseling as if it were a shameful thing. Oh, and we’ve gone round and round on the short and long forms of treatment, thrown up our hands at how to get people to stay on their meds and ignored people seeking help for loved ones because we honestly don’t know what to do.
And then we’ve turned around and said we’re doing better.
Read the whole thing for a fine example of what opinion writing ought to be like.