Doctors see the effects of poverty in the patients almost every day, but treating the root causes requires taking action outside their clinics and hospitals.

Dr. Paula Braveman (right) is a professor of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF, where she also directs the Center on Social Disparities in Medicine.

 Dr. Mary Maddox-Gonzales, head of the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, urges doctors and other medical practitioners to speak out about the public health implications of policies at every level of government.

The recent  PBS television series Unnatural Causes  answered the basic question it posed in the affirmative. So did the  KRCB-Television report on  same question here in the North Bay. You can see what we found out here. Both the national series and our local report will be rebroadcast again this fall.

Democrats in the state legislature have consistently opposed deep cuts in programs that serve California's neediest citizens.  Wednesday, a crowd of those citizens turned out in downtown Santa Rosa to raise their voices in their own defense.

(Photographs courtesy of Becoming independent)

Demonstrators outside the state office building in Downtown Santa Rosa July 16 (above) were uniformly concerned, and some such, as a woman named Bridget, were angry and upset.

Cammy Weaver, Executive Director of Becoming Independent in Santa Rosa, is alarmed at the way proposed budget cuts in the California legislature are eroding the protections of the state’s Lanterman Act.  Moreover, she fears, once those cuts are enacted, they will remain in place for years.

Although the state budget  "trailer bill" - the actual legislation to implement the spending cuts that are being debated in more general terms-is still tentative, it includes 36 specific items that the staff at Becoming Independent has been carefully watching. Chief among their concerns are these four:

Cuts to Early Intervention - 6,000 babies between 0-3 years of age will lose their services. Another 11,000 are at risk to lose of see major reductions in services. The result will be life-long disabilities for these babies who, with early intervention, may not even need ongoing services in their adult years.

 Use of Least Costly Program - For the first time as a matter of law, regional centers will have the authority to assign or transfer a consumer from where they want to be to a program entirely of the regional center's choosing to save money. That choice will not be subject to appeal. The IPP is destroyed for those who will be subjected to a life of someone else's choosing.

Cuts to Transportation - Relying on public transportation to move people with severe disabilities from where they are to where they need to be is a failed concept. It will work for some, but not for most. Unless the bus stops directly in front of their home and goes directly to where they need to be, it is simply impractical. It will trap people with disabilities in their homes. They won't be able to reach your program!

Cuts to Respite - The goal was to save $5 million by capping respite hours at no more than 90 hours per quarter. Instead, this cap imposes at least a 20% cut, "saving" more like $35 million. The reason saving is in quotes is that failure to get vital relief from 24-7 care-giving or people with severe disabilities will collapse many families and lead to much more expensive out-of-home placement.

YouthBuild, an education and job training program for young people in the Santa Rosa area, is going green.

Many of the recent YouthBuild graduates like to return and visit the current class, and Program Director Casey McChesney welcomes them as walking role models for the youth who are developing their own ideas of what success could represent for them.

You can hear a previous North Bay Report about YouthBuild from December 2008 here.

Ronald Burt attributes his competitive spirit to growing up as the third youngest of four brothers, and says he expects it will be further reinforced through his experience in Australia.

Downunder Football is program of the parent organization, International Sports Specialists, Inc.

 Donations to support Ronald in his Australian trip can be sent in his name to

International Sports Specialists, Inc.

1755 N. 400 E.  Suite 201

North Logan Utah, 84341

or to his mother, Tracy Burt, at 1500 Hearn Ave.,  Santa Rosa, CA 95407.

Free To Be, a  Santa Rosa-based sex education program, is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union for violating California's ban on abstinence-only teaching in public schools.

 Although we were not able to reach a Free To Be representative to be interviewed for this report, their website describes a program that "motivates and equips youth to live an abstinent life-style, encouraging healthy choices for a healthy future." They explain their educational approach in greater detail here.

Prior to 2004, explains Phyllida Burlingame, Sex Education Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California, the state's rules governing how and what schools could teach as Sex Education were a confusing jumble. That's one reason her organization helped update the California Education Code to the standard that is in place today.

 One significant difference between the current federal policy, a lingering holdover from the Bush administration, is that while the federal law supporting abstinence-only sex education programs explicitly prohibits favorable treatment of other forms of pregnancy prevention, California's law also requires that abstinence be taught, but as part of a broader array of possible options.

Below is a list, compiled by the ACLU, of Sonoma County Public Schools that have used Free To Be. They have been asked to confirm, before the end of this month, that they will not continue to use the program in the coming school year.