March 2009 Archives

This week Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a bill requiring the installation of carbon-monoxide alarms in most homes. House Bill 1091, which becomes law July 1, requires that all new or sold residential properties have carbon-monoxide alarms on each floor of the property. Rental properties also also be required to add the alarms when tenants change.

A Denver family of four died in a vacation home in Aspen on Thanksgiving, while a University of Denver student died in her apartment in January -- all from carbon-monoxide poisoning. Relatives of Parker and Caroline Lofgren and their children, Owen, 10, and Sophie, 8, and of DU student Lauren Johnson, 23, pushed lawmakers to put measures in place to prevent future CO poisoning deaths. See Another Tragic Colorado Death Due to CO.

Across the country, support for the death penalty is waning, and Colorado is among 11 states that have proposed bills to abolish capital punishment in 2009. This week, New Mexico became the second state to abolish the death penalty since 1976.

Yesterday was full of memories of two promising young Coloradans, each killed by the overconsumption of alcohol at a fraternity house. A memorial service was held for former Arapahoe High School honor student Jason Wren, while the last claims in a lawsuit brought by the mother of a CU student who died of alcohol poisoning in 2004 were settled.

Dr. Scott S. Reuben, an anesthesiologist in Springfield, Mass., who practiced at Baystate Medical Center, has admitted that he never conducted the clinical trials that he wrote about in 21 journal articles dating from at least 1996. The reliability of dozens more articles he wrote is uncertain, and the common practice -- supported by his studies -- of giving patients aspirin-like drugs and neuropathic pain medicines after surgery instead of narcotics is now being questioned.

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that consumers can sometimes resist credit card companies' push to move their dispute over finance charges and late fees to arbitration. The justices voted 5-4 Monday in favor of Betty Vaden in her dispute with Discover Bank.

Parents of an 18-year-old Ohio man who suffered a brain injury while snowboarding have filed a lawsuit against doctors at a northwestern Pennsylvania hospital alleging that the staff intentionally killed the young man so as to harvest his organs. The lawsuit claims that Hamot Medical Center doctors and a representative of the Center For Organ Recovery and Education caused Gregory Jacobs' death by administering medication and by removing his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request to review the case involving Luke Perkins. That means that a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said the Thompson district was doing enough to meet Luke's needs will stand.

Luke's parents, Jeff and Julie Perkins, had argued that Berthoud Elementary was not doing enough to help Luke after he enrolled there in 2002. They instead enrolled him at the private Boston Higashi School for Autism and sued to have the district pay for his tuition.