Shuman Center needs adequate resources

The June 20 editorial “Shuman Watch: ‘Kind of Shocking’ at Juvenile Detention Center” sensationalizes a small number of incidents without including the facts involved.

Shuman Center is charged with the difficult task of detaining mentally ill and violent youth offenders. The most recent state inspection report indicates that 90 percent of the youth detained at the facility are “red carded” as violent and that 50 percent have been diagnosed with mental health issues.

There is no doubt that all staff must follow protocols to protect the detainees and themselves. Yet the licensing representatives for the state Department of Human Services have made errors in the past in alleging abuse by the staff at Shuman. These errors have been part of the reason for the provisional license, even though the state’s judges have ordered the allegation of abuse removed from the staff members’ records.

The state, which oversees youth detention facilities, needs to provide the resources to handle the task at hand. The state needs to provide much-needed resources such as funding for the county to have adequate staffing, provide more extensive specialized training and access to mental health treatment for residents at Shuman.

History has shown that privatizing public detention facilities does not benefit the community, the adjudicated youth or the staff. If Shuman Center is closed, these young people residing there will be shipped to for-profit facilities away from their families, outside the community, and will most likely graduate to the adult criminal justice system at a much higher cost to all involved. LEVI TAYLOR

East Hills

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a clear attack on our democratic institutions. ROBERT CONCILUS Squirrel Hill

Regarding “Big Pharma May Be Seducing Your Doctor” (June 18 Forum) by Nicole Van Groningen, an internal medicine physician in San Francisco:

I graduated from college in 1957 with a degree that emphasized national certification for medical technology. Subsequently, I was employed by group of hematologists, a penurious yet ethical lot. “Detailers,” drug salesmen, haunted the office daily, hawking their “snake oil” and samples. They were to be put off as long as possible.

A pharmacist friend joked about his gifts of 25-cent pens and writing pads from salesmen who were on their way to Shadyside Hospital, where the physicians were wooed with trips to the Bahamas for favors dispensed. The physicians, in turn, would pass the trip off as a continuing education seminar.

Fast forward to the ’90s. While waiting to be seen by a primary care physician who was running late, I was told to “hurry and get this over because the drug rep is bringing in a Chinese dinner for the staff and I don’t want to miss it.” Mercifully, she no longer practices in Pittsburgh.

Sixty years have elapsed and changes in Big Pharma’s mentality are nil. While I appreciate Dr. Van Groningen’s commentary, it is one that appears once every 10 years in the editorial section. This is a capitalist nation, where money cures all ailments. LUCRETIA BIORDI ELSON

Squirrel Hill

Smell something? Well, now you can say something with a new app that has been developed by Carnegie Mellon University. It’s called Smell PGH. Pittsburghers can now report anything that smells out of the ordinary. This may seem like no big deal. But as Beatrice Dias, project director for the Robotics Institute, has said, “If you smell something bad in the air, chances are that the air isn’t good to breathe.”

Smell PGH provides a way for people to take charge of the air they breathe. Pittsburgh, while making strides toward combating air pollution, is still lagging behind many other cities. Smell PGH allows Pittsburghers to alert others, including policymakers and regulators, when andwhere the air is dangerous.

Air pollution affects everyone. Yet people are often kept in the dark about the quality of their air. This app changes that. It empowers the individual to take action against contaminated air. I urge every Pittsburgher to download the app. We cannot be silent about air pollution that is making our communities unsafe. The polluters have the means to fix the problem; they are simply choosing not to. Smell PGH allows citizens to holdpolluters accountable. ANNA GARNER

Mercer, Pa.