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 ncouraged
by its recent success in securing the medical establishment's cooperation
in reducing gun violence, the California State legislature is currently
considering a bill that would require doctors to question their
school-age patients about the prevalence of risky leisure-time behaviors
in their homes.
Rep. Barbara Medlar, sponsor of the Golden State Childhood Medical
Practitioner Assistance Act (GSCMPAA), says the law would compel
pediatricians to ascertain each patient's injury-probability index
by means of a questionnaire to determine whether the youngsters
engage in dangerous activities when they are not in school.
"Childhood play injuries cost taxpayers and insurance companies
$154,000,000,000 every year, and if we are to rein in health costs,
we must get a grip on this problem," Ms. Medlar says. "But this
isn't just about dollars and cents. Our government has a duty to
protect its children."
While some doctors are afraid the law's requirements would be burdensome,
Ms. Medlar insists that isn't the case. "It will just mean a few
more questions while they're asking the kids about their pets, online
habits, friendships, sexual activities, their parents' eating, drinking
and reading preferences, and the presence of guns in their homes,"
she said.
Referring to the recently imposed schoolyard ban on tag, dodgeball,
hide-and-seek, and hopscotch, Ms. Medlar added, "Very few parents
realize how dangerous certain activities are because they have a
benign image. We need to be sure kids aren't doing things at home
that they're not allowed to do on the playground. If it's not safe
at school, it's not safe at home."
Citing a case in Almohada where a five-year-old was brought into
the emergency room after inhaling a feather during a pillow fight,
Ms. Medlar explained, "Many people actually encourage their children
to take out their aggressions with pillows, but this case made it
clear that fighting with pillows is unacceptable. If that child's
doctor had known the family permitted pillow fighting, he could
have had a conference with the parents to explain the potential
danger and spared the child a terrible trauma — not to mention
saving the cost of the ambulance and emergency room treatment."
While there was some opposition initially to the idea of requiring
doctors to delve into the details of their patients' family lives,
resistance all but disappeared following passage of the Complicity
in Child Abuse Act (CCAA), which made it possible for an adult to
be charged with child abuse if he knew or could have known about
the presence of firearms in a child's home yet failed to report
it to the child's teacher.
The first person charged under CCAA, Hector Flores, was a deliveryman
for NotFauna.com. Two years ago, while carrying a heavy vase of
flowers into the home of a paraplegic customer, he was squirted
by one of the customer's kids with a water pistol. The customer
apologized and Flores forgot about the matter, but subsequently,
when the same child squirted a pizza-delivery man, who reported
the incident, the ensuing investigation uncovered the previous assault
on Flores. Flores was charged with child abuse for having failed
to report the episode, which might have prevented the attack on
the pizza deliverer. Convicted and sentenced to two years in a facility
for child molesters, Flores appealed, arguing that the law referred
only to actual firearms, not to purple water pistols. The court
ruled that although the language of the statute read "firearms"
and not "actual firearms," the prosecution had nevertheless
acted reasonably in extending the state's school policy of zero
tolerance to the home.
After his release, Flores will be required to register as a child
abuser wherever he lives while serving his 19 years' probation.
The child will be returned to his family later this year when his
parents have completed the state's Violence Begins in the Home crime-prevention
program.
Ms. Medlar says she has been very encouraged by the legislature's
response to the GSCMPAA. "So often attempts to improve safeguards
meet resistance from extremists who see everything government tries
to accomplish as an infringement on their personal liberties. It
is really high time that we stopped permitting these people to endanger
our children."
Although Ms. Medlar did not refer to it directly, she was undoubtedly
thinking of the public-safety improvement program that was the backbone
of her reelection campaign. The program suffered a setback last
year when she was unable to convince the governor to sign the Hair
Safety Act.
Ms. Medlar had introduced legislation to eliminate hair as a causative
factor in accidents following publication of a study in the Journal
of the California Association of Public Health Medicine, which
showed hair to be a significant contributing factor in as many as
43% percent of all injuries.
The study, conducted over an 18-year period, followed 70 men and
women as they went about their daily activities. During that period,
12 participants were hospitalized for hair-related traumas. One
female subject is still recovering from serious injuries sustained
in a high-speed accident that occurred when she sought to change
lanes on a freeway and discounted the 'shadow' in her peripheral
vision, thinking it was her own hair, when in reality it was a dark
brown SUV attempting to pass her.
When the study's results became the subject of a two-hour special
on CNN, Ms. Medlar drafted a bill seeking to limit licensed drivers
in California to hairstyles not exceeding two-and-a-half inches
in length. The bill squeaked through the legislature, but the governor
vetoed it, explaining that although he personally favored public
safety, he doubted he would be reelected if he signed a law regulating
hairstyles in California.
Notwithstanding that minor setback, Ms. Medlar is optimistic that
the Childhood Medical Practitioner Assistance Act will become law.
"People are always complaining that medicine has become too impersonal,"
Ms. Medlar says. "And they're right. In an earlier time, doctors
knew how their patients lived because they made house calls. This
law will restore caring to the practice of medicine."
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