News Cut: March 21, 2008 Archive

It's certainly not the trial of the century, but it is one that makes you shake your head and wash your hands. And it's happening (reg. req.) in the relative anonymity of Devils Lake, N.D.

Aron Nichols, of Fargo, and his fiancée are accused of shooting Donald and Alice Willey in their country home last year, then setting their house ablaze.

Why?

The Willey's were the parents of the man with whom the fiancee had a daughter -- now 8 -- and she allegedly didn't want them to have visitation rights.

You can check Sara Jane Olson off the "whatever happened to...?" list. The former St. Paul soccer mom who was, in reality, Symbionese Liberation Army bomber Kathleen Soliah, has just been released from prison for plotting to kill LAPD officers by blowing up their cars.

"She's out of prison too soon by far," John Opsal told the Sacramento Bee today. His mother was killed in an SLA holdup that Olson participated in. "It's another in a series of slaps in the face of victims by the justice system. ... That's a good four years before when I thought she would be released."

She served her time in a prison in California, but the case still reverberates through Minnesota... particularly Minnesota politics. Many DFL leaders came to her side after her 1999 arrest. One, DFLer Sandy Pappas, a former candidate for mayor of St. Paul, tested the political hot water when she said the charges didn't amount to "real crimes." She backtracked but by then, it was too late. The case became not only a debate over whether the sins of a criminal past should be forgiven, but the underpinning of a political debate (mostly on talk shows) over whether Democrats "go easy" on crime, and have their roots in a criminal brand of radicalism.

The case even ended up as part of the 2006 campaign for the 5th Congressional District after Republicans pulled this quote made after Olson's arrest by now Rep. Keith Ellison: "I think it's dangerous to prosecute people for their political views and their political associations. I think you prosecute people for what they do, for their acts," he said.

Olson eventually pleaded guilty to the charges, then walked out of the courthouse to declare that she had just pleaded guilty to something she didn't do.

Olson could've gotten life in prison. She was sentenced to 20 years to life, served six, and is now on probation. She's been ordered to stay in California although she's asking to be allowed to move, presumably back to Minnesota where her husband and children live.

"I'm so glad that they've got their mother back. My only hope is that she gets to come back to Minnesota because I miss her, too," said longtime friend Andy Dawkins, a former state representative from St. Paul.

(This posting was updated with Minnesota data at 2:51 p.m.)

The New York Times reported today on the increasing disinterest of some parents in having their children vaccinated, in the belief that mercury and other ingredients in vaccines increase the risk of autism and other illnesses.

Says the Times:

The exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing.

Twenty-one states have exemptions to laws requiring children be immunized. Minnesota is one such state by virtue of this clause in the state's immunization law:

If a notarized statement signed by the minor child's parent or guardian or by the emancipated person is submitted to the administrator or other person having general control and supervision of the school or child care facility stating that the person has not been immunized as prescribed in subdivision 1 because of the conscientiously held beliefs of the parent or guardian of the minor child or of the emancipated person, the immunizations specified in the statement shall not be required. This statement must also be forwarded to the commissioner of the Department of Health.

The Times' story says a big jump in the number of parents invoking their exemption has health officials worried that more kids running around without being immunized, threaten to reinvigorate illnesses -- measles, for example -- that have been declining as health threats. In the states that allow exemptions, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the number of children whose parents invoked a personal-belief exemption rose from 1 to 2.54 percent between 1991 and 2004.

The situation in Minnesota is less clear, however. A spokesman for Johns Hopkins told MPR this afternoon that researcher Saad Omer, who provided the statistic to the Times, did not have a state-by-state break down. A spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Health says he is attempting to find out if there is such a record.

Minnesota Department of Health spokesman Buddy Ferguson says the percentage of parents claiming the exemption was .2 percent in 1992 and 1.27 percent in 2001. The methodology for the survey changed, making comparisons with earlier data difficult. The most recent data (2006) shows 1.23 percent for K and 7th grade combined and 1.32 percent for kindergarten only. The earlier numbers appear to be blow the natiional average mentioned in the Times story.

Even without the increase of personal-belief exemptions, the number of children without vaccinations is significant among certain groups in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Department of Health has identified several disparities. Children who live in low-income areas are under-immunized. Childhood immunization levels are as low as 45% in some low-income zip code areas of Minnesota; high-risk children are behind on hepatitis B vaccine; native American children are at increased risk of hepatitis A; and minority persons 65 years of age and older have low immunization rates, the department says.

Despite the article's implications, however, the exemptions don't seem to have local health officials especially worried. "We have not taken any active position on it (exemptions) and it would not be something the Mayo Clinic would do," Dr. Denis Cortese, the president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic, told the National Press Club luncheon today. "We have a situation here where education and more knowledge and bringing people along is really the key, I think, to make this work. There are some legitimate concerns that people have about vaccines and this is where science and research can help quell that... Who knows what the truth is; we should be looking at this pretty hard."

Had he just raised the possibility that vaccines do cause autism? Given the chance to explain his position again, Cortese said there's no evidence to suggest they do.

You asked for it! "Make it harder," you said. Fine, it's harder. Too hard? Not hard enough? You decide as you take this week's News Cut Quiz by going here. As always, feel free to review the week and post your results in the comments section.

MPR's Tom Weber passes along that MnDOT has now set up a section on its Web site for the now-closed DeSoto bridge in St. Cloud. Of particular interest is a copy of the August 3, 2007 inspection of the bridge, ordered by Gov. Pawlenty after the I-35W bridge collapsed. The St. Cloud bridge employs the same design.

"No critical deficiencies were observed during this inspection. Also, no new deficiencies since the last annual inspection were found during this inspection," the report said. It was a 10-hour inspection.

But the inspection, apparently, did not include gusset plates, the pieces of steel that connect beams together. An inadequate design has been cited as a possible reason for the I-35W collapse.

Findings in a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the I-35W bridge collapse have pointed to flawed gusset plates as a critical factor, leading to a greater sensitivity about their condition.

Today, however, Acting Commissiioner of Transportation Bob McFarlin said the plates apparently weren't studied in the August inspection. "They were not examined in the past by anybody, this is something new for all states across the country," McFarlin said.

The August inspection was primarily examining corrosion.