Daddy issues: Are Ron Pauls hard-core stands a problem for sons presidential bid?

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HOUSTON Rand Paul wants to lead the United States. On Saturday in Texas, his father was speaking at a conference about how to leave it.

A lot of times people think secession, they paint it as an absolute negative, said former representative Ron Paul (R-Tex.). After all, Paul said, the American Revolution was a kind of secession. You mean we should have been obedient to the king forever? So its all in the way you look at it.

This weekend was a crucial one for Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and undeclared candidate for the presidency. He was in California, trying to line up donors at an opulent retreat organized by the billionaire Koch brothers.

At the same time, his father retired after 12 terms in Congress and three presidential runs was in the ballroom of an airport hotel here, the final speaker at a one-day seminar in breaking away from the central state. He followed a series of speakers who said that the U.S. economy and political establishment were tottering and that the best response might be for states, counties or even individuals to break away.

The America we thought we knew, ladies and gentlemen, is a mirage. Its a memory. Its a foreign country, Jeff Deist, Ron Pauls former press secretary and chief of staff, told the group. And thats precisely why we should take secession seriously.

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) discussed what they see to be the current U.S. economys weak spots at a forum Sunday night. All are thought to be potential 2016 presidential hopefuls.

The contrasting scenes this weekend illuminate the odd situation of the Pauls as the 2016 campaign season begins. They are a father and son tied together but running in opposite directions.

Rand, 52, is contemplating a presidential run at its heart, an act of optimism. He is moderating some hard-line positions and introducing himself to donors and voters. At the same time, Ron, 79, has embraced a role as libertarianisms prophet of doom, telling his supporters that the United States is headed for catastrophes and might actually need catastrophes to get on the right track

Which puts Rand Paul in the unusual position of trying to win over the country while his father says it is going down the tubes.

Asked by a reporter whether he was worried about making trouble for his sons presidential campaign by talking about secession here, Ron Paul deflected the blame to the press: If we had decent reporters, there would never be any problems. You think you could ever meet one? Have a heart, buddy.

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Daddy issues: Are Ron Pauls hard-core stands a problem for sons presidential bid?

Are Ron Paul's hard-core stands a problem for son's presidential bid?

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HOUSTON Rand Paul wants to lead the United States. On Saturday in Texas, his father was speaking at a conference about how to leave it.

"A lot of times people think secession, they paint it as an absolute negative," said former representative Ron Paul (R-Tex.). After all, Paul said, the American Revolution was a kind of secession. "You mean we should have been obedient to the king forever? So it's all in the way you look at it."

This weekend was a crucial one for Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and undeclared candidate for the presidency. He was in California, trying to line up donors at an opulent retreat organized by the billionaire Koch brothers.

At the same time, his father retired after 12 terms in Congress and three presidential runs was in the ballroom of an airport hotel here, the final speaker at "a one-day seminar in breaking away from the central state." He followed a series of speakers who said that the U.S. economy and political establishment were tottering and that the best response might be for states, counties and even individuals to break away.

"The America we thought we knew, ladies and gentlemen, is a mirage. It's a memory. It's a foreign country," Jeff Deist, Ron Paul's former press secretary and chief of staff, told the group. "And that's precisely why we should take secession seriously."

The contrasting scenes this weekend illuminate the odd situation of the Pauls as the 2016 campaign season begins. They are a father and son tied together but running in opposite directions.

Rand, 52, is contemplating a presidential run at its heart, an act of optimism. He is moderating some hard-line positions and introducing himself to donors and voters. At the same time, Ron, 79, has embraced a role as libertarianism's prophet of doom, telling his supporters that the United States is headed for catastrophes and might actually need catastrophes to get on the right track

Which puts Rand Paul in the unusual position of trying to win over the country while his father says it is going down the tubes.

Asked by a reporter whether he was worried about making trouble for his son's presidential campaign by talking about secession here, Ron Paul deflected the blame to the press: "If we had decent reporters, there would never be any problems. You think you could ever meet one? Have a heart, buddy."

A spokesman for Rand Paul said he was not available to comment for this story. Both Pauls have said that if Rand Paul runs for president, his father will not campaign with him.

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Are Ron Paul's hard-core stands a problem for son's presidential bid?

GOPs Top 10: Introducing the Fox News First 2016 Power Index

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FOX News First: Jan. 26 By Chris Stirewalt

GOPS TOP 10: INTRODUCING THE FOX NEWS FIRST 2016 POWER INDEX Yes, yes. We know. It is 53 weeks until the start of the first 2016 nominating contest and more than six months until the first Republican presidential debate. But despite a lot of big talk about contenders waiting until later to jump in, two big-name candidate forums and a spate of buzz-generating announcements over the past weekend proved that there would be no delay in the start of this cycle. And so the time has come for the making of lists and the inaugural Fox News First 2016 Power Index.

[Watch Fox: Its go time. Special Report with Bret Baier is live from Des Moines, Iowa at 6 p.m. ET.]

Short list, indeed - The Power Index for Democrats is a lot simpler because there is only one spot. In deference to her enormity within the party, Hillary Clinton, possessed of a pre-fab campaign designed to be scaled out to a $2 billion crusher of Obama-like underdog dreams, has no serious rivals. She may draw a palooka or two to help her tune up for the title match, but Democrats are so far mostly unwilling to do anything that might endanger her undisputed frontrunner status though she and President Obama still have some issues to sort out. And while the empty field is a testament to the partys shallow bench and Clintons power, its also evidence of real concerns about her general election viability. Her ham-fisted performance in the rollout of her campaign book last year sent chills down many Democratic spines. If things change, well start ranking Democrats. But for now, its a party of one.

[You know I sit back there and I listen and I help write the ideas in the [State of the Union address] and I know it all... and I got to pay attention. And [wife Jill Biden] said, Welcome to the club. And I said What do you mean? She said, Welcome to the Good Wives Club. Vice President Joe Biden in an interview on Ellen set to air today.]

Fine print - The following list of 10 candidates could easily stretch to two dozen, so it does not pretend to be comprehensive. Nor does it pretend to be predictive of who the nominee will be, instead it is focused on who is the frontrunner at this writing. Factors including poll performance, fundraising prowess, campaign organization and an individuals political skills all go into this (very subjective) ranking. Todays list gives us a starting place. In the weeks to come, we will update rankings on Mondays, pointing out major moves up, down or out. You likely disagree with some or all of it. Thats good! You should let us know what you think at FOXNEWSFIRST@FOXNEWS.COM We will share some of the best responses here. Now lets get to listing.

1) MITT ROMNEYRomney opens the season as the frontrunner for his place in the polls, his organization, his fundraising network and, most importantly, his name recognition. But the weeks to come pose a challenging question for the man considering a third White House run: There is no question that Republicans like Romney a lot more than they like President Obama, but do they like him more than anyone in the crowded field of those seeking their partys nomination? Romney has made a strong argument for why he should be president now but is still sketching out why he, and not one of the others, should be president two years hence. Romneys recent remarks about global warming suggest he is taking a different approach than his 2012 run when he was accused of pandering to conservative voters. A more direct pitch may earn him points for candor or it may just be Huntsmaning, in which a candidate seeks a partys nomination by publicly disputing the partys positions.

[Livin on the edge - WaPo: Mitts favorite snack is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of chocolate milk.]

Holy man - NYT: Three years ago, Mr. Romneys tortured approach to his religion a strategy of awkward reluctance and studied avoidance that all but walled off a free-flowing discussion of his biography helped doom his campaign. (The subject is still so sensitive that many, including the prominent Republican, would only discuss it on condition that they not be identified.) But now as Mr. Romney mulls a new run for the White House, friends and allies said, his abiding Mormon faith is inextricably tied to his sense of service and patriotism, and a facet of his life that he is determined to embrace more openly in a possible third campaign.

2) JEB BUSHIt is a testament to the clout of the Republican establishment (and the power of famous names) that the first and second spots on the list go to members of the same tribe. But Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush certainly earns his high ranking. Its also partly a reflection of the fact that the cream has yet to rise from among the more conservative members of the party. Bush has already demonstrated his clout by being the one who fired the starting pistol to begin the race with a Facebook post before Christmas. The big issue for Bush, however, remains whether he, 13 years after his last campaign, has the agility and endurance to face down what will be a very bruising process. Bush, who said that a winning Republican presidential candidate might have to lose the primary to win in November, hasnt yet done much outreach to the GOP base, something at which his establishmentarian brother excelled.

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GOPs Top 10: Introducing the Fox News First 2016 Power Index

First Read's Morning Clips

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OBAMA AGENDA: Drone lands inside White House grounds

This morning's alert: "A drone landed inside the White House grounds early Monday, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News. The official gave no further details about the unmanned aerial vehicle, other than to say it landed in a tree at 3 a.m. ET. The Secret Service responded and determined the drone did not pose a threat, the official said."

From the AP in New Delhi: "President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday declared an era of 'new trust' in the often fraught relationship between their nations as the U.S. leader opened a three-day visit to New Delhi. Standing side by side at the stately Hyderabad House, Obama and Modi cited progress toward putting in place a landmark civil nuclear agreement, as well as advances on climate change and defense ties. But from the start, the day was more about putting their personal bond on display. Modi broke with protocol and wrapped Obama in an enthusiastic hug after Obama got off Air Force One."

Analysis from the Wall Street Journal: "U.S. President Barack Obama joined Indian leaders on the reviewing stand at a military parade here Monday in a display of strengthened ties between the world's largest democracies as an increasingly assertive China shifts Asia's power balance."

Eye on the environment -- in Alaska. "The Obama administration is moving this week to designate areas of Alaska off limits to oil and natural gas drilling in its latest effort to bolster its environmental legacy," writes the Wall Street Journal. "The Interior Department announced on Sunday that it was proposing to preserve as wilderness nearly 13 million acres of land in the 19.8 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, including 1.5 million acres of coastal plains that is believed to have rich oil and natural gas resources."

Eurozone Watch, from the AP: "A radical left-wing party vowing to end Greece's painful austerity program won a historic victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, setting up a showdown with the country's international creditors that could shake the eurozone. Alexis Tsipras, leader of the communist-rooted Syriza party, immediately promised to end the "five years of humiliation and pain" that Greece has endured since an international bailout saved it from bankruptcy in 2010."

CONGRESS: Surgery day for Reid

Roll Call reminds us: Harry Reid's eye surgery is today.

OFF TO THE RACES: Wrapping up the cattle calls in Iowa, California

A couple of takes from NBC's Perry Bacon Jr. in Iowa here and here

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First Read's Morning Clips

Heather Wilhelm: Im weary of Washington

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Every time I go to Washington, D.C., I leave town a little more libertarian. Unfortunately, our nations capital seems to have the opposite impact on its longtime residents.

Dont get me wrong: D.C. is really nice. Its a gorgeous city. But every time I go there, I cant help thinking that its really nice because you, I and your cousin Rick are paying for it. That new hotel with the shower replicating Balinese rainfall is harder to love, really, when you realize its probably just your trickled-down tax dollars. That swanky bar with the Prohibition theme may be fun and ironic! but it also might leave you with the sneaking suspicion that in some way, shape or form, through the long, twisting curve of the economic chain, you just bought everyone in the room a very expensive drink made of top-shelf alcohol, artisanal pomegranate seeds and edible gold glitter. Cheers!

Heres where it gets even creepier: Odds are, pretty much everyone at that same fancy bar is connected, usually financially, to the growing government borg. I once spent a half hour at the bar of the Park Hyatt Washington. Waiting for a friend, I ended up chatting with a young woman who worked for the Department of the Undersecretary of Interagency Special Projects of Something or Other. After about 24 minutes, I felt like the downsizing consultants in the movie Office Space. I honestly could not figure out what she did.

As Forbes recently reported, six of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation are in the D.C. area, and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why: Again, its you, me and your cousin Rick.

Tuesdays State of the Union address exemplified the glossy, impervious D.C. bubble, with President Barack Obama spouting giveaways like a carnival barker and repeatedly misusing the most popular word in our nations capital, which is free. Community college! Child care! Television ratings for the State of the Union have been dropping in recent years 33.3 million people watched in 2014, which is 4 million fewer than the previous year and less than a third of the number who watched the Super Bowl. This is bad, because many Americans are clearly missing a glorious chance to see how insane our government really is.

Before anyone asks me whos going to build the roads in my experience, when you express even the slightest libertarian inklings, someone will undoubtedly ask you, usually in all caps, WHO IS GOING TO BUILD THE ROADS? I shall not dodge the question. The government, which, as we all know, is funded by you, me and you-know-who, should build the roads. It should also manage the military. The government, in fact, has many necessary and worthy functions, many of which are helpfully laid out in the Constitution. (I know, I know. Nobody cares.)

That said, the government does not need to micromanage student lunches, mandate gender-neutral bathrooms in preschools, or leak our personal health information to private data firms when we sign in to Healthcare.gov. The bad news, as The Associated Press reported, is that the government might actually be sniffing around that last idea. The good news, I suppose, is that the Healthcare.gov website appears to have been constructed out of fishing twine, used tin foil, and a floppy disk filled with pirated software from the pioneering 1980s video game Oregon Trail, making it unlikely that any real data could actually get through.

On that note, I have a brilliant idea for a new government program. It may seem counterintuitive at first, but bear with me. If our goal is reasonably limited government in America, perhaps we should start a federally funded fellowship program that would bus average Americans to D.C., where they could then sit at the bar of the Park Hyatt Washington for an hour. There would be no need to stock the bar with employees of, say, the Bureau of Sustainable Orchards and Southern Nativity Scene Management they, or someone similar, will surely be hanging out, ready to talk all about themselves and the mysterious and important things they do.

The bus trips may seem costly at first, but think of it as an investment. And, unlike a Barack Obama-style government investment, this one would actually pay off: Odds are, participants would go home so disgusted that theyd never vote for a spending increase again.

Heather Wilhelm lives in Austin and writes a regular column for real clearpolitics.com. Reach her at wilhelmheather@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter at @heatherwilhelm.

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Heather Wilhelm: Im weary of Washington

Polk County Political Calendar

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Published: Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 10:50 p.m. Last Modified: Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 10:50 p.m.

LIBERTARIAN PARTY ANNUAL MEETING

The Libertarian Party of Polk County Florida will hold its annual meeting with election of officers for 2015 at 7 p.m. today at Cleveland Heights Golf Course, 2900 Buckingham Ave., Lakeland.

Social hour with dinner is from 6 to 7 p.m. with the meeting following. For information, call Russ Wood at 863-221-6339.

WINTER HAVEN DEMOCRATIC CLUB

The Greater Winter Haven Democratic Club will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Room 1 of the Chain of Lakes Complex, 210 Cypress Gardens Blvd.

The meeting will include a report from the nominating committee on a proposed slate of officers and directors for the upcoming elections. All Democrats are welcome to attend.

For information, call the chairman at 863-965-8241.

LAKE ASHTON REPUBLICAN CLUB

The Lake Ashton Republican Club will meet at 4 p. m. Wednesday in the Lake Ashton Health and Fitness Center, 6052 Pebble Beach Blvd., Winter Haven. New officers will be sworn in by Polk County Republican Executive Committee chairman Jim Guth.

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Polk County Political Calendar

Inaugural Allen Distinguished Investigator Life Science Symposium

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Researchers to showcase groundbreaking work in: Cellular decision-making, human accelerated regions, medical research and lineage barcodes

The Allen Distinguished Investigator program supports high-risk, high-reward ideas in science. Award recipients typically receive nearly $1 million or more for three years of research. Without the ADI program, many of these innovative research projects would go unfunded.

Monday, February 9th, Allen Distinguished Investigator awardees will gather in La Jolla, California at the Scripps Seaside Forum for an all-day symposium. It's a unique opportunity to hear how these researchers are breaking new ground and making an impact on science today and in the future.

Presentations will feature various key award focus areas.

Cellular Decision-Making:

Thierry Emonet, Yale University; Thomas Shimizu, FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics; Steven Zucker, Yale University: Crowd Computing with Bacteria: Balancing Phenotypic Diversity and Coordinated Behavior.

Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco: Untangling the Wires: An Integrated Framework for Probing Signal Encoding and Decoding in Cellular Circuits.

Jeff Gore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Microbial Studies of Cellular Decision-making: Game Theory and the Evolutionary Origins of Cooperation.

Suckjoon Jun, University of California, San Diego: Cell-Size Control and its Evolution at the Single-Cell Level.

Human Accelerated Regions:

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Inaugural Allen Distinguished Investigator Life Science Symposium

Tool-making may have made language genes more useful

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Oldowan choppers dating to 1.7 million years ago, from Melka Kunture, Ethiopia.

Its widely understood that human genetics can influence culture, but increasingly, the idea that culture can also affect genetics is gaining ground. The theory of gene-culture coevolution suggests that the cultural practices we adopt change the costs and benefits of having certain genes, explains Catharine Cross, a researcher at the University of St Andrews. A gene that is advantageous under one cultural practice is not necessarily advantageous under another.

For example, yam cultivation in West Africa led to deforestation and an increase in standing water, which creates a breeding ground for mosquitoes and malaria. This meant that yam farmers with a particular genetic resistance to malaria were more likely to survive than farmers with susceptibility to malaria. Yam farmers in the region have been found to have a higher incidence of this genetic trait than nearby groupseven speakers of the same languagewho farm other crops.

A recent study published in Nature Communications has suggested that stone tool-making practices among the ancestors of modern humans may have put evolutionary pressure on individuals who werent very good at communicating, helping to select for the genes that would become involved in language.The study found that the use of verbal teaching, compared to learning by imitation, significantly improved the quality and speed production of stone tools. This suggests that individuals with gestural or verbal communication skills could have learned to make tools faster and better, giving them an advantage over individuals who could only imitate.

The researchers tested the difference in performance by using transmission chains, a method similar to the childrens game of telephone. The person who starts a chain passes on information to the next person, who then passes that information along, all the way down the chain. This can provide insight into how information changes when it is passed through generations of people.

In this case, the information being passed down the chain was the technique of creating Oldowan stone tools. These were the first stone tools to appear in the fossil record, approximately 2.5 million years ago, and were the predominant technology for approximately 700,000 years until more advanced Acheulean stone tools started to appear.

The first person in each chain was an experimenter skilled in the Oldowan method of hammering sharp flakes of flint off a central core. This person could pass information down the transmission chain in one of five ways. The first method, pure imitation, involved the teacher simply making the tools while the first participant watched, with no interaction.Three of the five transmission methods involved some sort of interaction: basic teaching, which allowed the teacher to slow their movements down or shape the participants grip; gestural teaching, which added in gestures; or verbal teaching, which allowed normal speech.Finally, the fifth method allowed the participant no contact at all with the teacherrather, they had to work out how to make the tools just by looking at examples produced by the teacher.

After a short learning period, the participant was required to pass on their new skills to the next participant in the chain using the same transmission method. Participants were paid more if they and their pupils produced more, higher-quality tools, so there was a strong motivation to learn and teach well. Each learning condition had six transmission chains, with 184 participants overall.

The results indicated that learning through teaching, rather than reverse engineering or imitation, had a marked influence on the results. Participants who experienced active instruction from their teachers produced more, better quality flakes at a higher speed, with fewer mistakes. Unsurprisingly, verbal instruction produced the best results, followed by gestural instruction and then basic teaching.

The results are important, write the researchers, because they help us to understand the language could have played inhuman ancestors during the period when Oldowan tools were in use. Its unlikely that Oldowan tools would have remained unchanged for 700,000 years if language had already emerged, they write. Thissuggests that imitation, which doesn't transmit information as efficiently, helped to maintain this long period of stasis. However, it also seems that individuals with better communicative abilities may have had better success at tool-making, contributing to the pressures that led to the evolution of language, and more advanced Acheulean tools.

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Tool-making may have made language genes more useful

Why Wolves Became Dogs

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There's a good reason why wolves became human companions long before domestic breeding turned them into everything from Great Danes to poodles, scientists in Vienna say.

They wanted to be our friends because underneath that furry hide they were a lot like us.

For several years, researchers at Vienna's University of Veterinary Medicine have been studying wolves that have been raised in captivity just like domesticated dogs, to see how they differ from the canine pets that are in so many of our homes. They have even established the Clever Dog Lab and the Wolf Science Center.

In a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers Friederike Range and Zsofia Viranyi offer their "Canine Cooperation Hypothesis."

According to the hypothesis, ancient wolves already possessed at least three social skills that made them suitable for human companionship: They were tolerant, attentive and cooperative.

Just like dogs.

And they were very social, running in packs, just like humans.

In the latest in a series of experiments, the researchers found that wolves can learn if a human has food, where it is stashed, and even if the human is just fooling.

If the human hid it behind a shed, the wolf went right to it, apparently because it had observed the human's actions. Dogs that participated in the same experiment were more likely to sniff their way to the food, not relying as much on their powers of observation.

Getty Images

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Why Wolves Became Dogs

Tax Preparers Get Ready To Be Bearers Of Bad News About …

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Lou Graham prepares taxes in Connecticut and is ready to answer client questions about the Affordable Care Act. Jeff Cohen/WNPR hide caption

Lou Graham prepares taxes in Connecticut and is ready to answer client questions about the Affordable Care Act.

Are you thinking about tax day yet? Your friendly neighborhood tax preparer is. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen declared this tax season one of the most complicated ever, partly because this is the first year that the Affordable Care Act will show up on your tax form.

Tax preparers from coast to coast are trying to get ready. Sue Ellen Smith manages an H&R Block office in San Francisco, and she is expecting things to get busy soon.

"This year taxes and health care intersect in a brand-new way," Smith says.

For most people who get insurance through work, the change will be simple: checking a box on the tax form that says, "Yes, I had health insurance all year."

But it will be much more complex for an estimated 25 million to 30 million people who didn't have health insurance or who bought subsidized coverage through the exchanges.

To get ready, Smith and her team have been training for months, running through a range of hypothetical scenarios. She introduces "Ray" and "Vicky," a fictional couple from an H&R Block flyer. Together they earn $65,000 a year, and neither has health insurance.

An H&R Block flyer with fictional couples representing possible scenarios of what people might encounter reconciling their taxes under the Affordable Care Act. H&R Block hide caption

An H&R Block flyer with fictional couples representing possible scenarios of what people might encounter reconciling their taxes under the Affordable Care Act.

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Tax Preparers Get Ready To Be Bearers Of Bad News About ...

Health Care Sector Update for 01/26/2015: HTBX,ATNM,MSTX

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Top Health Care Stocks

JNJ -0.14%

PZE +0.57%

MRK +0.35%

ABT +0.50%

AMGN -0.26%

Health care stocks were slightly higher with the NYSE Health Care Sector Index climbing about 0.1% and shares of health care companies in the S&P 500 advancing about 0.2% as a group.

In company news, Heat Biologics ( HTBX ) rallied Monday after the biotech company today presented positive immunological data on its HS-410 drug candidate in certain forms of bladder cancer.

According to the company, one of the patients participating in the Phase I trial showed a 70-fold rise in CD8+ "killer" T cell after six weeks of HS-140 treatment following surgery and growing to 750-fold increase after 21 weeks of treatment.

The patient remains disease-free, HTBX said. A second patient experienced a non-specific immune infiltrate after seven weeks although a repeat biopsy at 13 weeks showed no further increase in the immune infiltrate.

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Health Care Sector Update for 01/26/2015: HTBX,ATNM,MSTX

Health Care Sector Update for 01/26/2015: HWAY,ATNM,MSTX

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Top Health Care Stocks

JNJ -0.20%

PZE +0.91%

MRK +0.54%

ABT +0.52%

AMGN +0.14%

Health care stocks were slightly higher, with the NYSE Health Care Sector Index climbing about 0.2% and shares of health care companies in the S&P 500 advancing about 0.3% as a group.

In company news, Healthways ( HWAY ) rose to a nearly seven-year Monday after the health care services company said it was exploring strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value.

The company also said it recently retained J.P.Morgan Securities to assist with the review, adding it does not expect to make additional announcements unless there is a material event approved by the its board of directors.

HWAY shares were up more than 11% at $21.90 each, earlier reaching their best share price since May 2008 at $22.25 a share. The stock already had risen more than 20% over the past 12 month prior to Monday's advance.

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Health Care Sector Update for 01/26/2015: HWAY,ATNM,MSTX

Lawmakers to push mental health care this session

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Mental health care in Wisconsin may be receiving more attention in the upcoming legislative session, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester announced late January.

The Associated Press reportedVos introduced a committee in an earlier session that has carried out assessments of mental health needs in Wisconsin. Vos also recently created a new Assembly committee to instigate mental health care development, which will begin this fall.

Julianne Zweifel, a clinical psychologist in the University of Wisconsins Medical Foundation, said social and cultural perceptions deeming mental health problems to be a sign of weakness is one of the factors creating a lack of services for those in need.

People in Wisconsin have what I would call a very German kind of attitude, which is grit your teeth, put your head down and plow through problems. Dont get help, Zweifel said. This social stigma is the biggest barrier to mental health care in Wisconsin.

The AP, reported Vos too, is trying to tackle the issue of social stigma through this legislation. Ryan Herringa, UW associate professor of psychiatry, said integrating mental health care into schools and ordinary health care services such as internal medicine could reduce the prevalence of such stigma and help people receive routine care.

He said having a mental health care worker within the medical clinic would both improve access and reduce stigma. He said it would be ideal if people could go to their regular doctors offices and get mental health care there too. He said this would reduce the stigma of seeking out mental health care, because it would be seen as more routine, necessary and universal.

Along with providing improved access to mental health care, Vos legislation would also aim to create higher quality mental health care facilities in Wisconsin. Zweifel said this could assist people in receiving the right kind of treatment from the right people.

People are not given an opportunity to seek appropriate care for their mental health problems so theyre likely to try to get that care through other means and thats not as effective, Zweifel said.

Herringa said time and money play crucial roles in determining accessibility to mental health care facilities as well and need to be factored into the legislation.Such factors include transportation costs, work hours and the time it takes to complete psychological treatments, Herringa said, all of which can cause people to stop seeking treatment. He said these issues tend to hit low-income individuals the hardest.

Even if you are able to get into a clinic, there is often a long wait time and when people are struggling with severe depression or suicidal thoughts or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder they need treatment as quickly as possible, Herringa said.

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Lawmakers to push mental health care this session

At 205,000 Strong, The Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now

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As the health care workforce shifts to treat patients in less expensive primary care settings, the number of nurse practitioners has nearly doubled in the last decade to more 200,000, new data shows.

The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) says there are 205,000 licensed nurse practitioners compared to 106,000 in 2004. Such advanced degree nurses perform myriad primary care functions, diagnose, prescribe medications and conduct physical exams.

There is unprecedented demand for nurse practitionersto work with primary care doctors to manage populations of patients, keeping them healthy and out of the hospital. The explosive growth of the nurse practitioner profession is a public health boon considering our nations skyrocketing demand for high-quality, accessible care, Ken Miller, AANPs president said.

Insurers are coaxing people toward population health via patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations. Under such value-based approaches, providers work to keep patients healthy, taking their medications, exercising and getting care upfront in a doctors office, a health center or retail clinic.

Retailers like CVS Health (CVS) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) have hired thousands of nurse practitioners. Walgreens, which opened about 40 clinics last year, has 1,200 practitioners at more than 420 clinics while CVS 2,700 practitioners across its 960 clinics. In the past five years, weve opened around 500 clinics and have been able to recruit enough practitioners to staff all of these sites with more on the way, Carolyn Castel, a CVS vice president, told Forbes.

Retailers see millions more Americans withhealth coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which has exacerbated a doctor shortage. Seeing a void, practitioners are lobbying to change scope of practice laws to allow them to do more. Nurse practitioners are serving as a lifeline for patients, many who would otherwise struggle to access care, David Hebert, AANPs said.

Wondering more about the role of nurses under the Affordable Care Act? The Forbes eBookInside Obamacare: The Fix For Americas Ailing Health Care Systemanswers that question and more. Available nowat AmazonandApple.

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At 205,000 Strong, The Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now

Autism cases in same family more often carry different genetic risks study

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Less than a third of autistic brothers and sisters share the same genetic risk factors. Photograph: Jane Bown

A major study of autism in families has found that brothers and sisters who have the condition often carry different genetic risk factors that make them prone to the disorder.

Research on 85 families found that siblings with autism had the same genetic risk factors less than one third of the time. In nearly 70% of cases, tests on the siblings revealed little or no overlap in the mutations known to contribute to the condition.

The findings challenge the presumption that the same genetic risk factors are at work when autism runs in families. We knew that there were many differences in autism, but our recent findings firmly nail that down, said Stephen Scherer at the University of Toronto.

This means we should not be looking just for suspected autism-risk genes, as is typically done in diagnostic genetic testing, Scherer added. Instead, he said a full assessment of a persons genome was needed if genetic information was ever going to inform their treatment.

In years of research, scientists have identified more than 100 genetic mutations that seem to contribute to autism, suggesting that a wide variety of biological processes are involved in the behavioural disorder.

In the latest study, known autism-risk genes were found in 42% of the families who took part. Brothers and sisters who shared autism-related mutations displayed more similar symptoms than those who did not, according to a report in Nature Medicine.

The genomes gathered for the study have become the first to be added to a database run by the charity, Autism Speaks, which aims to make at least 10,000 full genomes from people with autism available for researchers to work on.

Judith Brown at the National Autistic Society said the study added to scientists appreciation of the substantial and complex role that genetics played in autism, but that more work was needed to truly understand autisms genetic make-up.

The findings suggest that there is significant genetic diversity among people which autism, she said. This reaffirms the importance of viewing each person with autism as an individual and identifying support appropriate to their needs, rather than approaching all people in the same way.

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Autism cases in same family more often carry different genetic risks study