woman died on the floor of a California hospital emergency room while staffers ignored her pleas for help.

Another patient at the same hospital, arriving at the emergency room in excruciating pain after being told by his private physician to go immediately to the hospital for an ultrasound test. because the doctor suspected he had kidney stones waited, by his account, nearly two hours before they emergency room staff even took his temperature, two more hours for a urine test, and then two more hours for a blood test.

All this time he was in terrible pain and yet noticed that other patients arrived after him and were treated ahead of him. Not just the more serious cases either. As the hours wore on with no word on when he might see a doctor, the patient began asking periodically when he might finally get some attention.

The problem seemed to be that he had no health insurance, for the first time in his adult life, after losing a job because of a stroke. This was his first visit to the hospital despite growing up in the area.

Nine hours after arriving, he said he was given a painkiller. When it began to wear off and there was still no indication when he might see a doctor, he gave up and left. In all, he had been at the hospital for 11 hours and never got the test his doctor had sent him for. He’s now being treated at a clinic.

Another patient to the same hospital died two days earlier under circumstances even more shocking. But the two stories together make one wonder whether a poisoned culture exists.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the health services chief said the responsibility lies with a single nurse who has already resigned, and that this latest scandal isn’t a sign of a systemic problem.

Is he kidding?

When the woman arrived at a hospital with a gallstone problem and fell out of a wheelchair twice, is told by an ER nurse to get up, then left to lie on the ground while her frantic boyfriend calls 911. When no one will help, she writhes in pain for 45 minutes while a janitor sweeps around her and police begin to arrest her on a warrant. She then dies a horrible death from an apparent perforated bowel after several medical staffers sit back as if everything’s fine. Sorry, but it appears that the problem is not only systemic, it might be time to consider locking all the doors and calling in an exorcist.

It’s not as if this happened in a vacuum.

The same hospital lost its federal funding after stories emerged about lapses that led to patients’ deaths. It lost its accreditation. It disciplined more than 500 employees. It paid millions to settle negligence cases and It even changed management. Still, after all that, if employees can be so indifferent to a patient in distress, the only solution is to show them the door and remind everyone else what the mission is. Perhaps a daily recitation of passages from a modernized Hippocratic oath:

"I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

"I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability."

The widely prescribed drug to treat Type 2 diabetes, Avandia, substantially increases the risk of heart attacks and death from cardiovascular disease, according to a study released today that critics say questions the government’s ability to monitor drug safety.

Patients who took Avandia to reduce their blood sugar levels were 43% more likely to have a heart attack than patients who were given other medications or a placebo.

Researchers also found that the drug boosted the chances of dying of heart disease by 64%, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Food and Drug Administration responded by issuing a safety alert on Avandia, recommending that diabetes patients who take the medication discuss the heart risk with their doctors.

One prominent drug safety expert who co-wrote an editorial accompanying the study, said the FDA should take Avandia off the market.

GlaxoSmithKline, the company that makes Avandia, attacked the study as an incomplete analysis of data from disparate studies that are difficult to combine. The London-based pharmaceutical giant reported $2.8 billion in Avandia sales last year.

GlaxoSmithKline stock tumbled 7.8% after the study’s release and closed at $53.18 on the New York Stock Exchange, erasing nearly $13 billion in market value.

News of the possible risks of Avandia also ignited a furor on Capitol Hill on Monday, where three major committees announced investigations. Some lawmakers and their staffs have been quietly probing the issue, and congressional investigators said the drug could be responsible for as many as 11,600 heart attacks a year.

The concerns over Avandia could have a major effect on an FDA reform bill making its way through Congress. The Senate-passed version, which the House will soon take up, has been criticized by some consumer groups and lawmakers as too accommodating to industry.

The 200-page bill would significantly boost funding for drug safety, set up a new computerized surveillance network to broadly monitor for risky side effects, and create a legal framework for dealing with drugs that could pose problems.

Illegal drag racing is a culture not restricted to California, but it again took another bloody turn early Sunday in Lancaster, California when a passing driver veered into a crowd of spectators, leaving two men dead and three men hospitalized. Some onlookers then jumped into their cars, chased down the driver and held him for deputies, authorities said.

The driver was booked on suspicion of felony hit and run.

More than 150 people were gathered about 1 a.m. on a dark stretch of desert highway when a westbound Chevy truck, not involved in the race, plowed into the crowd, investigators said. The driver then sped away and was pursued for five miles before he was stopped. The spectators held him until deputies arrived.

Illegal street racing is a major problem across the land, especially now that the summer months are with us.  Enthusiasts often communicatie via text messages and gather in the early morning along mostly deserted highways to watch drivers compete at speeds in excess of 100 mph. Even spectators, can be cited under codes specifically outlawing drag racing.

Such races have long been part of U.S. — and especially Southern California — underground culture. It was celebrated as early as the 1950s in the James Dean movie "Rebel Without a Cause" and subsequently in films such as "Two-Lane Blacktop," "American Graffiti" and "The Fast and the Furious." The last film is credited as the first cinematic look into the illegal sport-compact racing community.

The phenomenon, seen in both rural and urban areas, has claimed many casualties.

As a result, a number of cities across the nation have imposed penalties on street racers and the spectators who cheer them on.

When a truck wouldn’t run after the mechanic at the auto dealer cleaned the vehicle’s fuel injectors the dealer balked at fixing the engine, and the owner called his lawyer.

The lawyer helped him prepare documents for his small-claims court case and advised him on what to wear and say in court. The advice paid off for the truck owner won and recovered the cost of a replacement engine.

His legal tab? Zero — or $13 a month, depending on how you look at it.

To wage the small-claims fight, the individual tapped into prepaid legal services that his employer offers as an employee benefit, like life insurance or dental care.

A monthly payroll deductions gives all employees access to a roster of lawyers affiliated with a firm which handle most matters at no additional charge, a phenomenal bargain considering that experienced lawyers often charge $250 to $700 or more an hour.

Having an affordable legal team on call gives everyone peace of mind.

An estimated 90 million people in the U.S. work for companies or are members of unions that offer the type of legal benefit to the American Prepaid Legal Services Institute, a Chicago-based trade group affiliated with the American Bar Assn.

Sometimes called legal insurance, group legal services provide the average person a family lawyer like you used to have a family doctor; a person to take care of things the family needs, so they don’t have problems later.

Americans were introduced to prepaid legal services, imported from Europe in the 1970s, when they were included as benefits in labor union contracts. The popularity of legal plans has grown. Last year, 27% of 9,000 employers surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offered them, up from 22% six years ago.

Individuals can buy into prepaid plans on their own, but the majority of people sign up through the workplace. Enrollment is voluntary, and in most cases employees pay monthly dues ranging from $9 to $25, with the employer usually contributing nothing. Under some union contracts, the employer foots the entire bill.

Legal plans function as health maintenance organizations do, pooling the risk of costly litigation on the bet that participating lawyers can help most clients over the phone or with a few hours’  work. People usually tap into the plans for help with "everyday legal life events" such as buying or selling a home, estate planning, adoption or changing a name. Although the services vary by plan, people enrolled through their employers generally can get help with divorces, credit problems, identity theft, immigration difficulties and tax audits.

For time-consuming or complex matters — such as when an uncontested divorce escalates into a "Kramer vs. Kramer" situation — clients may be charged additional fees but usually at a discounted rate. It all depends on the fine print in the contract.

Many plans cover misdemeanor offenses, such as traffic tickets. But don’t look to lawyers in your plan to keep you out of prison: Most don’t handle felonies. Most plans also exclude fee-generating cases such as class-action and personal-injury lawsuits.

Oh, and forget about enlisting your employer-sponsored lawyer to sue your boss.

Prepaid legal plans are a bad deal only if you never use them.

How do you know you can trust the lawyers in your plan? They apply to be listed on plan rosters, and providers regularly audit the practitioners they accept. Client complaints can trigger more frequent audits of a particular attorney or his or her removal from the roster.

Some lawyers get all of their clients through referrals from prepaid plans, listing themselves with as many as six providers. But most plan attorneys represent other clients as well.

Four police officers from South Gate, California, all minorities, who claimed they were harassed on the job because of their ties to two controversial and eventually ousted Latino city officials won a $10.4-million jury award Thursday.

The award is believed to be one of the largest ever in a police employment discrimination case and represents another setback for the controversy-plagued, working-class community in southeastern Los Angeles County.

The officers said they were threatened and undermined in trying to carry out their duties by some supervisors, most of whom were white, and by other officers. The plaintiffs said the illegal harassment was linked to their association with Rick Lopez — a previous acting police chief and the first Latino to head the department — as well as with since-disgraced former city Treasurer Albert Robles.

The lawyer for the four plaintiffs — three of whom still work for the South Gate Police Department — said the jury award essentially proved exactly what the officers have claimed all along.

But representatives of South Gate countered that the officers’ allegations mainly dated from 2002-03, when the city was roiled by a recall election campaign. They said the Police Department’s employment practices have since been revamped, leading to more hiring and promotions of minorities.

The lawyer for the city, said he expects to file follow-up motions or an appeal challenging the award by the Los Angeles Superior Court jury.

The case evoked memories of past controversies that led to the ouster of four City Councilmen in a January 2003 recall election. More recently, in November, the former city treasurer was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for plundering more than $20 million from city coffers.

The acting police chief was ousted shortly after the recall election. The departure came amid complaints about his $120,000 annual salary and other compensation, along with allegations — which the chief denied — that he broke the law by campaigning against the recall while in uniform. He was never charged.

The biggest part of the jury award, more than $4 million, went to one Officer who claimed his life has been endangered because other officers have turned down his emergency calls for backup help.

The lawsuit, brought in 2005, also charged that some members of the Police Department targeted the plaintiffs and other officers by posting a threatening, one-page leaflet around department headquarters.

Among other things, the document said officers who sided with the plaintiffs should "look over your shoulder. Until you leave this organization, you never know what can happen in this violent world in which we live." In addition, the document said, "Here’s our deal. We know who you are. We will deal with you when we finish taking out the most putrid of trash first."

The issue of ethnicity appeared to enter the jury’s decision only indirectly as the jury found that none of the plaintiffs was subjected to harassment or discrimination because of his race.
 
But the panel did find that they were harassed and discriminated against because of the race or national origin of people the officers were associated with. This was the second multimillion-dollar jury award the attorney has won against the city of South Gate.Last year, a jury awarded his client, a former assistant police chief, $4.2 million in a lawsuit claiming retaliation. The city is challenging that decision.

State regulators in California have launched investigations of three cases in which ambulance and fire department rescuers in Los Angeles and Orange counties allegedly failed to provide proper patient care, a top official said.
The incidents were highlighted in a Los Angeles Times investigation published in May that disclosed breakdowns in oversight of the state’s 85,000 medical rescuers.

The newspaper found that nothing ensures that potentially problematic cases are reported and investigated, increasing the risk of harm to patients.

None of the cases, which occurred between 2000 and 2005, had previously been brought to the attention of the state or regional regulators who oversee paramedics and emergency medical technicians. The system largely relies on ambulance and fire officials to report their own possible failings.

Investigators will try to determine whether state laws governing emergency care were violated. Paramedics and lesser-trained EMTs can be disciplined or lose their credentials for lapses such as gross or repeated negligence, failing to accurately document patient care and performing medical procedures without authorization.

Likened to "body snatchers" by Southern California Orange County’s top prosecutor, three doctors were arrested Wednesday for their alleged roles in an elaborate insurance fraud scheme in which hundreds of patients across the U.S. were recruited to undergo unnecessary procedures in exchange for money or low-cost cosmetic surgeries.

The arrests bring to 17 the number of people named in the "rent-a-patient" scam allegedly operated out of Unity Outpatient Surgery Center in Buena Park.

Michael C. Chan, a Cerritos, California obstetrician, William W. Hampton, a Seal Beach, California surgeon, and Mario Z. Rosenberg, a Beverly Hills gastroenterologist on staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, are accused of performing more than 1,000 unneeded procedures on 940 patients, then billing insurance companies an estimated $30 million for the work.

Each of the doctors is facing 47 felony counts, including conspiracy and insurance fraud, and could receive nearly 50 years in prison if convicted. They were ordered held on bail after their arrests and could be arraigned as early
The California Medical Board is pursuing suspension of their licenses.

Los Angeles attorney Peter Morris, who represents Rosenberg, ardently denied the charges, calling them "false" and defending his client as "one of the most highly respected gastroenterologists in the country."

According to the district attorney’s office, five Unity administrators and nine alleged recruiters, also known as "cappers," had already been arrested since the case began unfolding about four years ago. One of the cappers has been convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Two other cappers and one administrator have pleaded guilty.

In the scheme, authorities said, cappers would be paid commissions to recruit patients from around the country to have unneeded colonoscopies or other procedures, including what is usually a last-resort surgery for sweaty-palms disease. This operation involves collapsing a lung and clipping a nerve. In exchange, prosecutors said, the patients were rewarded with cash, vacations and cosmetic surgery, including tummy tucks and face-lifts.

Between July 2002 and April 2003, prosecutors said, more than 2,000 patients from more than 30 states were solicited to participate in the Unity scheme, resulting in $90 million in fraudulent claims billed to more than a dozen insurance companies. Those companies ultimately paid Unity $17 million of those claims, prosecutors said.

Most Fair-minded readers of this blawg will no doubt take me at my word when I say that a majority of Democrats in this country are out of their gourds.

But, on the off chance that a few cynics won’t take my word for it, I offer you data.

Rasmussen Reports, the public opinion outfit, recently asked voters whether President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The findings? Well, here’s how the research firm put it: "Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know and 26% are not sure."

So, 1 in 3 Democrats believe that Bush was in on it somehow, and a majority of Democrats either believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance or can’t quite make up their minds.

There are only three ways to respond to this finding: It’s absolutely true, in which case the paranoid style of American liberalism has reached a fevered crescendo. Or, option B, it’s not true and we can stop paying attention to these kinds of polls. Or there’s option C — it’s a little of both.

My vote is for C. But before we get there, we should work through the ramifications of A and B.

We don’t know what kind of motive respondents had in mind for Bush, but the most common version has Bush craftily enabling a terror attack as a way to whip up support for his foreign policy without too many questions.

The problem with rebutting this sort of allegation is that there are too many reasons why it’s so stupid. It’s like trying to explain to a 4-year-old why Superman isn’t real. You can spend all day talking about how kryptonite just wouldn’t work that way. Or you can just say, "It’s make-believe."

Similarly, why try to explain that it’s implausible that Bush was evil enough to let this happen — and clever enough to get away with it — yet incapable either morally or intellectually of doing it again? After all, if he’s such a villainous super-genius to have paved the way for 9/11 without getting caught, why stop there? Democrats constantly insinuate that Bush plays politics with terror warnings on the assumption that the higher the terror level, the more support Bush has. Well, a couple of more 9/11s and Dick Cheney will finally be able to get that shiny Bill of Rights shredder he always wanted.

And, if Bush — who Democrats insist is a moron — is clever enough to greenlight one 9/11, why is Iraq such a blunder? Surely a James Bond villain like Bush would just plant some WMD?

No, the right response to the Rosie O’Donnell wing of the Democratic Party is "It’s just make-believe." But if they really believe it, then liberals must stop calling themselves the "reality-based" party and stop objecting to the suggestion that they have a problem with being called anti-American. Because when 61% of Democrats polled consider it plausible or certain that the U.S. government would let this happen, well, "blame America first" doesn’t really begin to cover it, does it?

So then there’s option B — the poll is just wrong. This is quite plausible. Indeed, the poll is surely partly wrong. Many Democrats are probably merely saying that Bush is incompetent or that he failed to connect the dots or that they’re just answering in a fit of pique. I’m game for option B. But if we’re going to throw this poll away, I think liberals need to offer the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to data that are more convenient for them. For example, liberals have been dining out on polls showing that Fox News viewers, or Republicans generally, are more likely to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Now, however flimsy, tendentious, equivocal or sparse you may think the evidence that Hussein had a hand in 9/11 may be, it’s ironclad compared with the nugatory proof that Bush somehow permitted or condoned those attacks.

And then there’s option C, which is most assuredly the reality. The poll is partly wrong or misleading, but it’s also partly right and accurate. So maybe it’s not 1 in 3 Democrats suffering from paranoid delusions. Maybe it’s only 1 in 5 , or 1 in 10. In other words, the problem isn’t as profound as the poll makes it sound. But that doesn’t mean the Democratic Party doesn’t have a serious problem.

Last  Week’s murder indictment of a former Alabama state trooper for the 1965 shooting of a young black voting-rights demonstrator is one more Deep South prosecution of a long-forgotten white defendant who ended up on the wrong side of the civil rights revolution.