Unfortunately, this cogent essay is behind the subscription wall, although you can read an editor's introduction here. Health Affairs at least has an excuse, since they don't take advertising.
John Lantos, a pediatrician who takes care of chronically ill children, writes:
Among all treatments for all ailments in the United States today, the most severely rationed is nonpharmacologic mental health care for poor children. For doctors on the front lines, this creates daily dilemmas. We are forced to give treatment that we know is both dangerous and suboptimal. [I.e., drugs.] The only alternative would be to turn away such patients or to refer them for treatments that I know will never actually be available. Among these immoral alternatives, we explore together, trying to find a new and more habitable world. Watching Troy and his mom walk out of clinic, I feel, just for a moment, the heartbreak. I feel frightened and depressed and, oddly, just a little exhilarated. I have to hope. What else can you do when you’re sailing toward the edge of the known world?
Lantos notes that there are two schools in Chicago that can provide appropriate education and developmental therapy for children with profound autism. They can serve a total of 150 children, but there are about 5,000 children in the area who need such services.
If you would like, you can weigh in here on what you would like to do with the $456 billion we've spent so far on invading and occupying Iraq. I have a suggestion of my own, which has to do with president Coocoo Bananas and is inappropriate for this family-oriented blog. I must say that most of the suggestions so far are not much better, so go there and raise the level of discourse.
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