How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

Rachel Aviv, How the Elderly Lose Their Rights. Guardians can sell the assets and control the lives of senior citizens without their consent–and reap a profit from it. The New Yorker, 9 October 2017. “For years, Rudy North woke up at 9 A.M. and read the Las Vegas Review-Journal while eating a piece of toast…. Rennie, his wife of fifty-seven years, was slower to rise. She was recovering from lymphoma and suffered from neuropathy so severe that her legs felt like sausages…. On the Friday before Labor Day, 2013, the Norths had just finished their toast when a nurse, who visited five times a week to help Rennie bathe and dress, came to their house, in Sun City Aliante, an ‘active adult’ community in Las Vegas…. Rudy chatted with the nurse in the kitchen for twenty minutes, joking about marriage and laundry, until there was a knock at the door. A stocky woman with shiny black hair introduced herself as April Parks, the owner of the company A Private Professional Guardian. She was accompanied by three colleagues, who didn’t give their names. Parks told the Norths that she had an order from the Clark County Family Court to ‘remove’ them from their home. She would be taking them to an assisted-living facility. ‘Go and gather your things,’ she said. Rennie began crying. ‘This is my home,’ she said.”

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The Miracle Industry: America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker, Johnson & Johnson

Steven Brill, The Miracle Industry: America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker, Johnson & Johnson. The Huffington Post Highline, 15 September 2015. Chapter I of 15, “The Credo Company. Backstage at Johnson & Johnson.” “The Johnson & Johnson Risperdal story is a complex, roller coaster tale. The details count. They are important in understanding the people and impulses behind the drugs we take. To tell that story in a way that is digestible but complete, The Huffington Post Highline and I are trying something new: a DocuSerial. It’s a reconstruction of an old story-telling genre that allows us to deploy the modern tools of digital communication to engage readers in old-fashioned, long-form feature journalism.

Every day for the next 15 days, a new chapter of the Johnson & Johnson story will be posted here. Along with the text, we will post not only a rich array of photos and graphics, but also links to every document—court transcripts, internal emails, FDA staff memos—referred to in that day’s chapter. That way, you will be able to delve more deeply into the materials that are quoted. (You’ll also be able to make sure I held true to the context of the material I quote.)”

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Life and Death in Assisted Living, A. C. Thompson and Jonathan Jones, 2013

A.C. Thompson and Jonathan Jones, Life and Death in Assisted Living. ProPublica and FRONTLINE, four-part series and documentary, 29 July-1 August 2013. “This FRONTLINE co-production with ProPublica features investigative reporter A.C. Thompson, who goes behind closed doors in assisted living facilities across the country to reveal how this multibillion-dollar industry is putting seniors at risk with little or no official scrutiny or regulation. Assisted Living has been marketed as a safer, more humane alternative to nursing homes, but Thompson uncovers just how far this is from the truth. In lively interviews and with unprecedented access, Thompson makes a strong case for tougher oversight and regulation of the facilities that house 750,000 seniors in America.” Sharon Tiller, an executive producer at The Center for Investigative Reporting.

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