Winners
Amateur astronauts
In late October, Gov. Bill Richardson announced that a partnership between Rocket Racing Inc. and Armadillo Aerospace could mean commercial space flights from Spaceport America as early as 2010, for as cheap as $100,000. Still too pricey for Joe Six Pack? Joe should do what video game designer and astro-tourist Richard Garriott did: sell his body to science. Allegedly, Garriott was rewarded for participating in health-related experiments, such as one on the effects of space travel on the human immune system and one on the sleeping habits of astronauts.
Inmates
Last year, SFR reported on the spate of lawsuits filed by New Mexico inmates against Wexford Health Sources, the company that handled New Mexico's prison health care until an SFR investigation upturned massive institutional negligence. Most of those suits were filed by the inmates themselves or by pro-bono attorneys and ended in dismissal. Now, however, Wexford will have to face the briefs of Frank "2006 Public Lawyer of the Year" Weissbarth, who is suing for breach of contract on behalf of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department. That case, however, won't receive a docket call in Judge James Hall's court until June 2009.
Santa Fe’s prescription drug program
Usage of Santa Fe County's prescription drug program has skyrocketed, with a monthly average of 882 people showing their discount cards to Santa Fe pharmacists this summer (May-August), compared to a monthly average of 151 in summer 2007. Initially the county reported 3,531 used the program—on closer inspection of the numbers, SFR discovered the county had simply added the monthly usage, thus quadruple-counting individuals who used the program each of the four months.
Losers
Bill Richardson
In its September-October newsletter, the New Mexico Medical Society blasted Gov. Bill Richardson with the headline, "Special Session Appropriates $$—No Reform," a reference to the big promises but pathetic outcome of the governor's attempt to pass universal health care. Although the governor approved $32 million in new spending, the NMMS noted that "bills on electronic health records and the consolidation of agencies that provide state health care coverage fell by the wayside." As a result, the NMMS House of Delegates has called a special meeting for Dec. 5-6 to decide their reform strategy for the 2009 legislative session.
Breast-fed babies
A new study by University of New Mexico researchers published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that the milk of nursing mothers in New Mexico contains 50-75 percent less docosahexaenoic acid than the international average. The omega-3 essential fatty acid is found most abundantly in seafood and is crucial to brain and vision development during the first year of infant nervous-system development, according to the article.
Santa Feans
According to the National Priorities Project's Federal Budget Trade Off calculator (nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs), the Wall Street bailout cost Santa Feans $86.2 million. For that money, Santa Fe could have provided one year of health coverage to 23,000 people or 30,600 children.