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The Disability Rights Legal Center has filed a lawsuit against the Director of the California Department of Public Health and the Coordinator for the California Office of Family Planning, among other defendants, on behalf of Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc. (GLAD), an organization representing the deaf and/or hard of hearing community in Southern California. For sixteen years, GLAD has operated a teen pregnancy prevention program for youth who are deaf and/or hard of hearing. The program is supported by grant funds distributed through the public agencies named above. This past year, the agencies instituted new requirements that make it nearly impossible for the organization to obtain funding for its longtime program. In the complaint, filed March 2, DRLC argues that these requirements violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504, the U.S. Constitution, corresponding state claims, the California Administrative Procedure Act, and requests declaratory and injunctive relief. 

On Friday, March 4, the Cancer Legal Resource Center sent a letter to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The letter asks Health and Human Services to address a detrimental coverage gap in the Medicare system for women at high risk for cancer. Currently, surgery for a prophylactic mastectomy is not a covered benefit for Medicare recipients. Additionally, there is no pre-approval system for determining whether Medicare will cover a recommended prophylactic procedure before it takes place. This practice makes it very difficult for women with a high risk of developing breast cancer, to decide whether to elect this expensive, but potentially life-saving treatment without assurance that the costs will be reimbursed by Medicare. Therefore, the CLRC is looking into ways to close this important coverage gap to increase access to preventative services for those with a genetic predisposition for cancer. The letter was written by Anya Prince, Skadden Fellow at the Cancer Legal Resource Center, as part of her fellowship addressing the legal concerns of individuals with genetic predispositions for cancer.