Resources for police and autism awareness in wake of teen's death
Plus: The dark history of 'Wellness Farms' and a leaked document shows plans for a 30 percent cut and major reorganization at HHS
Hello friends,
This month’s news that an Idaho teen was shot and killed by police in a completely avoidable misunderstanding is harrowing and potentially triggering. Unfortunately, most weeks somewhere in the country there is an awful story of abuse, filicide, neglect or fraud against a child with an intellectual or developmental disability. I don’t usually include these in the news round up because I am more interested in policy changes, systems-level issues and cutting through the social media outrage machine. But I thought it was important that we raise awareness about Victor Perez and other police shootings involving autistic people who are not capable of immediately complying with instructions. According to the Autism Society, one in five autistic children will have an interaction with law enforcement, and because autistic behaviors can appear suspicious or resistant, too many of those interactions end in traumatic outcomes.
If you are in a position to advocate, there are resources for your police department. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has a few fact sheets on its website about ASD. The Autism Society also has a training for first responders and families called Safety on the Spectrum. I will be going over page 2 of this fact sheet with my sons this weekend.
I can only hope it will help.
Medical Motherhood’s news round up
Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story.
• From the Associated Press via WPSU: “Intellectually disabled teen shot by Idaho police dies after being removed from life support”
An autistic, nonverbal teenage boy who was shot repeatedly by Idaho police from the other side of a chain link fence while he was holding a knife died Saturday after being removed from life support, his family said.
Victor Perez, 17, who also had cerebral palsy, had been in a coma since the April 5 shooting, and tests Friday showed that he had no brain activity, his aunt, Ana Vazquez, told The Associated Press. He had undergone several surgeries, with doctors removing nine bullets and amputating his leg.
Police in the southwest Idaho city of Pocatello responded to a 911 call reporting that an apparently intoxicated man with a knife was chasing someone in a yard. It turned out to be Perez, who was not intoxicated but walked with a staggered gait due to his disabilities, Vazquez said. His family members had been trying to get the large kitchen knife away from him.
Video taken by a neighbor showed that Perez was lying in the yard after falling over when four officers arrived and rushed to the fence at the edge of the yard. They immediately ordered Perez to drop the knife, but instead he stood and began stumbling toward them.
Officers opened fire within about 12 seconds of getting out of their patrol cars and made no apparent effort to de-escalate the situation.
The shooting outraged Perez's family and Pocatello residents, and a vigil had been planned for Saturday morning outside the Pocatello hospital where he was treated.
"Everybody was trying to tell the police, no, no," Vazquez said. "Those four officers didn't care. They didn't ask what was happening, what was the situation."
"How's he going to jump the fence when he can barely walk?" she said.[…]
• From Teen Vogue : “RFK Wants to Send People to ‘Wellness Farms.’ The US Already Tried That.”
In a clip from a July 2024 virtual town hall that recirculated online earlier this year, now Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argues that the US should combat addiction by opening “wellness farms” to help people get off opioids, antidepressants, and stimulants. Kennedy says people taking medications for conditions like depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), along with those living with addiction, could spend three or four years growing organic produce on these farms to be “re-parented” and “reconnect with communities.”
[…]In short: America has already tried wellness farms. Beginning in the 1890s and continuing through the first few decades of the 20th century, epileptic and "feebleminded” colonies sprung up around the US. The initial purpose of these colonies was to remove patients from overcrowded, badly run asylums and poorhouses in favor of farm life where they would have access to the outdoors.
Under the colony model, patients generally lived in “cottages” designed to be more homelike than institutional. Patients were also given jobs, and many were expected to work on colony farms where they grew their own food. Dr. William Spratling, the medical superintendent of the Craig Colony for Epileptics in New York, declared that the farm model meant, “Nature, the great restorer, will have an opportunity to do her best.”
It didn’t work.
[…]Data from the Craig Colony — one of America’s first epileptic colonies, opened in 1896 — illustrates this point. During the 1940s, thanks to funding and staff limitations because of World War II, conditions in North American institutions were particularly grim. The institution’s 1943-1944 annual report to the state Commissioner of Mental Hygiene shows that less than 1% of patients were discharged as “cured” that year. During that same period, over 200 patients attempted to leave the colony without permission, and over 5% of the total patient population died.[…]
• From Politico: “HHS funding slashed by 30 percent in budget proposal”
The Trump administration is considering a more than 30 percent cut to the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services, as part of a sweeping reorganization that would eliminate dozens of programs and consolidate key health agencies.
[…]Overall, the proposal outlined by the White House Office of Management and Budget recommends slashing HHS’ overall discretionary funding to roughly $80.4 billion, down from the $116.8 billion enacted in the fiscal 2025 budget.
“Many difficult decisions were necessary to reach the funding level provided in this Passback,” OMB wrote in the document, referring to the practice of notifying department officials what to expect in its funding request for the coming fiscal year.
The proposal, which was dated April 10 and obtained by POLITICO, is still subject to change as the White House prepares to send a formal budget proposal to Congress. An HHS spokesperson referred questions to OMB. OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said that “no final funding decisions have been made.”
[…]In perhaps the most significant element of the restructuring, the proposal suggests eliminating funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Administration for Community Living, along with a handful of other smaller programs.
Some of the work done at those agencies would continue under the Administration for a Health America, which would get roughly $14 billion in budget authority under the plan. Yet that funding is well below the collective amount allocated to those agencies in past years. It would also mean eliminating dozens of programs, including programs on autism, teen pregnancy prevention, substance abuse initiatives focused on minority populations and firearm injury and mortality prevention research.[…]
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