GBONEWS: Deadline Extended, July 22 for 15th Journalists in Aging Fellowships; New Books on Aging Women; Paula Span at 15 Years on NYT New Old Age Column; Hospitalized and Isolated in Puerto Rico; Secret Prescription Drug Inflation Exposed; Psychiatric Care Scarce; & More

GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS 

E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.  

July 15, 2024 — Volume 31, Number 7

EDITOR’S NOTEGBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [pfkleyman@gmail.com]. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, you’ll receive the table of contents in an e-mail, so just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities. 

NOT In This IssueMuch ado about everything until later issues on breaking (shooting news), on persistent political ageism, and America’s handbasket weavers bound for Hell. Meanwhile, no one’s getting any younger, while some may be getting wiser. Stay tuned, be hopeful, read on.

1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** Deadline Extended for 15th Journalists in Aging Fellowships to July 22.

2. GEN BEATLES NEWS: *** NYT’s Paula Span’s 15 Years on New Old Age Column.

3. THE STORYBOARD: 

*** Lonely Elders Hospitalized, Bilingual Series by Marga Parés Arroyo, El Nuevo Dia, San Juan, PR; 

**“Buncombe’s silver tsunami: As growth in residents over 65 soars, funding doesn’t keep pace, two-part Series on Buncombe County, NC, by Barbara Durr, Ashville Watchdog;

*** Latinx Hotel Workers in Las Vegas, their “Digital Gap,” bilingual series by Clavel RangelEl Tiempo Latino(Washington-Baltimore);

*** “The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs,” by Rebecca Robbins andReed AbelsonNew York Times;

*** “Finding in-patient psychiatric care is especially hard for older adults,” by Annmarie TimminsNew Hampshire Bulletin/News from The States news service; 

4. THE BOOKMOBILE

*** The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughterby Melinda Blau, Morehouse Publishing; *** Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespanby Maddy Dychtwald with Kate Hanley, Mayo Clinic Press.

1. EYES ON THE PRIZE

*** 15th Journalists in Aging Fellowship Deadline, Extended to July 22: We’ve extended the application deadline for the fellowship opportunity, our partnership between The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and GBONews.org publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations. Reporters for the “Class” of 2024-25 will receive a stipend of $1,500, plus all travel expenses to attend GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting this coming November in Seattle. 

To date this year’s program will bring the total number to 245 participating reporters since 2010. (A full list up to this year is posted here.) have produced nearly 825 stories on aging in multiple languages for over 160 media outlets. As in previous years, half of the fellows will be selected from general-audience media and half from ethnic or other minority media outlets that publish/newscast in any language, serving communities within the United States, such as senior press, LGBTQ or disability media. Staff and freelance reporters are eligible to apply. 

This fellowship provides selected journalists with training about prime issues in aging for a wide range of media audiences, while also enabling the reporters to cover the latest scientific findings, policy debates, innovations and evidence-based solutions. 

Fellows at the conference will research their project stories among GSA’s hundreds of expert presentations by many of the 4,000 gerontologists expected to convene there from across the US and 50 other countries. Sessions and papers will span every wrinkle of our aging world, from cellular-level findings on cancer or Alzheimer’s disease to social research in areas like family caregiving or demographic trends. 

Applications for the fellowship program will be reviewed by a selection committee of gerontologists and editorial professionals. Providing our support so far this year are the Silver Century FoundationThe John A. Hartford Foundation, and the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation (NIHCM). Plus a contribution from Dr. John Migliacccio.

If you have questions about the fellowships, contact the program’s Co-Directors, Liz Seegertlizseegert@gmail.com, program coordinator, Journalists Network on Generations, or Todd Klusstkluss@geron.org, GSA’s director of communications. You may also contact me, Paul Kleyman, co-founder and Senior Advisor to the program, pfkleyman@gmail.com.

2. GEN BEATLES NEWS

*** “A Column in Which Age Takes Center Stage,” by Josh OcampoNew York Times (June 11, 2024): The Dek —  For Paula Span, a columnist for The Times’s Health section, the subject of aging doesn’t age.”

The Lede: “For about 15 years, Paula Span has dedicated much of her journalism career to covering one subject: aging, and the challenges that come with it. Ms. Span writes “The New Old Age,” a twice-monthly column for the Health section at the New York Times about issues affecting older Americans. Among the topics she has recently explored are the costs of growing olderthe rise of robotic pets as companions and the hazards of misinformation on social media.

Some Quotes: “In a phone interview from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Span, 74, discussed how the column’s audience has changed over the years and why she reads every reader comment on her articles. These are edited excerpts. . . .” 

Span Says: “There’s something like 60 million people over 65 in the United States. It’s a very heterogeneous group. . . When I took the column on, I thought I’d run out of material in a few years. Of course, 15 years later, there’s still so much to talk about.” 

And: “When ‘The New Old Age’ was conceived initially as a column about aging and caregiving, we thought the audience was the adult children who were caring for and helping to make decisions about their parents and their elder relatives. Over time, we came to realize that many of our readers were older adults themselves. . . It probably helped that I was aging along with the column, so I became an older adult. So now we see our audience as family members and adult children, but also older Americans themselves and all the people that are interested in the topic, like gerontologists, Meals on Wheels staffers, operators of long-term care facilities, advocates and elder attorneys. A group this big attracts a lot of attention from many sources.

What’s the greatest challenge of your work?

Finding older individuals who are willing to share their stories with me about things that are sometimes quite personal — health care, family relationships, finances. I think it’s easier to delve into some of these complicated subjects when there is a human story to tell. People have been very generous with their time. But we do require that they use their real names, locations and ages. We like to take their photographs when we can, and sometimes that can be difficult.

Do you have a favorite column from your 15 years of coverage?

One example where I could actually see the impact of something that I wrote, and that other media outlets also covered, was when the Justice Department went after the operator of an upscale continuing care retirement community in Virginia for discrimination; it was barring people who lived in the assisted living and the nursing home sections of the facility, restricting the fancy waterfront dining room to the independent living residents. Residents were outraged. They were paying a lot of money for that place. 

Not credited in story: The “New Old Age” column was started by reporter Jane Gross, who not only wrote the articles, but also developed a very active website, which the paper discontinued. Her fine book, A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents–and Ourselves was published by Knopf in 2011.

3. THE STORYBOARD

*** Four-Part Spanish-English series titled, “Pliegues en su piel, vacío en su corazón” (“Folds in your skin, emptiness in your heart,” by Marga Parés ArroyoEl Nuevo Dia, San Juan, PR, analyzing the increasing number of lonely older adults in hospital facilities in Puerto Rico. 

“They even arrive with human scabies”: cases of elderly people abandoned in hospitals multiply, June 22, 2024:

Who: “There are few homes that accept these cases. Once the [Puerto Rico Department of the Family (DF)] subsidizes that case, the social worker has to look for a home that meets that adult’s criteria,” Jonathan Morales Adorno, owner of Hogar Semilla de Amor said.  According to Morales Adorno, the profile of these cases is quite similar. In general, they are low-income people who did not work, or worked informally, and did not contribute to Social Security. Most of them, he added, did not prepare for their retirement or, with the increase in the cost of living, their income is insufficient for their expenses. 

The Hurricane: “Many were left alone when their children or relatives migrated, especially after Hurricane María (2017) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020). Some older adults simply did not want to leave the country, preferring to spend their old age in their homeland, Puerto Rico. ‘Many have Alzheimer’s or suffer from some mental illness, usually because of a trigger, such as the loss of their parents, children or a divorce,’ he added.” 

* “Multifactorial reasons behind the abandonment of elderly in the country’s hospitals,” (June 19, 2024). The DekSome advocate more support for caregivers, while others call for avoiding penalties for family members that could have worse consequences.”

“ ‘Plans don’t cover’: elderly abandonment exacerbates hospitals’ already weakened finances (June 19, 2024). The DekMeanwhile, the Administration for Families and Children (ADFAN) acknowledges that some elderly people are dying while waiting to be relocated to long-term care centers.”

The difficult task of a caregiver, when leaving an older adult in a hospital is not an option,”  (June 17, 2024). The DekTestimony gathered by El Nuevo Día reports on the sacrificing work undertaken by family members when caring for relatives with health problems.”

*** Two-Part Series on aging in Buncombe County, NC, by Barbara Durr in the nonprofit Ashville Watchdog — “Buncombe’s silver tsunami: As growth in residents over 65 soars, funding for services doesn’t keep pace,” (May 31, 2024): The Nutshell: “During the pandemic . . . , adults over 65 accounted for an astonishing 96.1 percent of the increase in Buncombe’s population, according to the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management. And by 2036, thanks to the area’s renown as a retirement mecca and the surge in Baby Boomers hitting age 65, one in four residents will belong to that cohort, the agency projects.

The Impact: “The influx is the reason the area’s pickleball courts are full, and why there are long waits at doctors’ offices, retirement housing complexes, and adult day care facilities. The need for aging services – housing, health and nutrition, transportation, protection from abuse, and caregiving – has skyrocketed, according to local service organizations for older adults, and will only increase in the years ahead.

Unmet Needs: “Meanwhile, Buncombe’s funding for aging services has not kept pace with the increase in older adults. Annual funding has stagnated at about $2 million for the last seven years, and per capita funding is less today than it was in 2017.”

As Buncombe’s silver tsunami rises, so does need for aging services,” (June 7): The Dek: “Agencies and providers lack staffing, funding, creating challenges for those over 65.”

A Quote: “While Buncombe’s aging services are supported by federal community block grants and the county’s own funding, the money is limited and, consequently, agencies that provide aging services are understaffed, said Alison Banzhoff, the county’s Adult and Aging Services Program manager. Staffing is ‘one of the biggest challenges,’ she said, because with limited funding the agencies ‘don’t pay adequately, so you can make more working at Chick-fil-A. That’s something we’re seeing across the board…for adult and family care homes, nursing homes, and those kind of things.’”

*** Three-Part Series by Clavel RangelEl Tiempo Latino (Washington-Baltimore, May 8, 2023, links in Spanish only so far, but English PDFs available by emailing GBONews editor: pfkleyman@gmail.com

*Part 1 – “La ruta de las trabajadoras hoteleras de Las Vegas por domar el uso de la tecnología,”  (“The Journey of Hotel Workers in Las Vegas to Tame the Use of Technology,” May 8, 2024);

* Part 2 — Cualquier limitación que el trabajador latino tenga en habilidades tecnológicas va a impactar la competitividad económica de los EEUU,” (“Any limitation that Latino workers have in technological skills will impact the economic competitiveness of the United States,” May 9);

*Part 3 – Después de los 50 años, los migrantes también se enfrentan al muro de la brecha digital,” (“After Age 50, Migrants Also Face the Wall of the Digital Gap,” May 29.)

*** “The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs,” by Rebecca Robbins andReed Abelson, New York Times (June 21, 2024) — The Dek: “This is the first article in a series about how pharmacy benefit managers prioritize their interests, often at the expense of patients, employers and taxpayers.”

The Lede: “Americans are paying too much for prescription drugs. It is a common, longstanding complaint. And the culprits seem obvious: Drug companies. Insurers. A dysfunctional federal government. But there is another collection of powerful forces that often escape attention, because they operate in the bowels of the health care system and cloak themselves in such opacity and complexity that many people don’t even realize they exist. They are called pharmacy benefit managers. And they are driving up drug costs for millions of people, employers and the government.”

Who: “The three largest pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, act as middlemen overseeing prescriptions for more than 200 million Americans. They are owned by huge health care conglomerates — CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group — and are hired by employers and governments. 

What: “The job of the P.B.M.s is to reduce drug costs. Instead, they frequently do the opposite. They steer patients toward pricier drugs, charge steep markups on what would otherwise be inexpensive medicines and extract billions of dollars in hidden fees, a New York Times investigation found.”

Say What? “The main lobbying group for the P.B.M.s says that in 2022 they saved their clients and patients $286 billion. But those savings appear to be largely a mirage, a product of a system where prices have been artificially inflated. The Times interviewed more than 300 current and former P.B.M. employees, patients, physicians, pharmacists and other industry experts, and reviewed court documents and patient records. The investigation found that the largest P.B.M.s often act in their own financial interests, at the expense of their clients and patients.”

*** “Finding in-patient psychiatric care is especially hard for older adults,” by Annmarie TimminsNew Hampshire Bulletin/News From The States news service (March 6, 2024): 

The Lede: “Near the end of the pandemic, Nashua’s St. Joseph Hospital had a wing it no longer needed for COVID-19. It opted to create a specialized unit that most hospitals haven’t: short-term inpatient care for older adults experiencing a psychiatric emergency. Providers said the demand on the limited number of older adult treatment beds in a rapidly aging state is a concern. By 2040, the state Office of Energy and Planning estimates 33 percent of adults in New Hampshire will be 65 and older, up from 10 percent in 2019.”

A Quote: “ ‘It is very distressing and I don’t know that there’s necessarily a big focus on this group,” said Andria Dobberstein, a registered nurse and director of behavioral health at Elliot Hospital, which was the first to open a geriatric psychiatry unit nearly 40 years ago. It has 29 beds, all of them always filled. ‘Obviously there’s a ton of attention being paid to involuntary admissions,” she said. ‘I think that has come from people speaking up about their rights being violated and having that really strong voice and being able to connect with advocacy groups and draw a lot of attention to the issue. And I just don’t know that that voice is there for this population.’”

The State: “Jake Leon, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the state is aware of the shortage and working to expand community-based and in-patient treatment for all ages. That has been driven in part by lawsuits alleging the state is violating the rights of people waiting in emergency rooms for treatment because the state has too few beds.”

4. THE BOOKMOBILE

*** The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughterby Melinda Blau, Morehouse Publishing is slated for publication on August 6, 2024. Blau, a bestselling author and veteran journalist (New York TimesHuffington Post, Psychology Today) got great advance endorsements such as from highly influential Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, who offered, that the book “unlocks the secrets to a fulfilling life of resilience, grace, and laughter.”

Blau confronts ageist stereotypes, she writes, from the voices of a group she calls “my old ladies.” They are not “celebrities or super‐agers, just brave, smart, interesting, energetic woman navigating territory I’ll someday reach . . . if I’m lucky. They accept—even embrace—that they are old and strive to keep living—or, as Marge puts it, ‘to be conscious, upright, and breathing.’” Marge adds that in 2016, “I told Dr. Smiles that I have a problem . . . I’m allergic to Trump!” (Blau declares in a footnote, “Honestly, that’s the real name of her GP!”)

The there’s Elyss, 99, a retired librarian, Henrietta, a vibrant nonagenarian, Zelda and “my other friends in their nineties and beyond,” Blau says. 

Blau explains in her introduction, “Let me be clear: This is not a book about old people or about aging per se. It’s a book about relationships and how to live. Just as important, I’m no Pollyanna: I’m 80 as this book goes to press. . . . More challenging than genes or the march of time, everything around me shouts, ‘OLD IS BAD!’ I am not immune to such messages. I sometimes fear slowing down, missing out, being less than, becoming invisible, and, the worst possible fate, losing my mind. To be sure, aging has a downside. Life itself does. But at least we can decide how to react.” 

She concedes, “Do my old ladies forget an occasional word? Of course. So do I. Do they repeat themselves? Sometimes. Me, too. Do I worry that sooner rather than later I will lose them? Yes, but the time we spend is life‐affirming. All good relationships are rewarding, but someone older gives me what no other friend can: a preview of what’s to come. And yes, they whisper to me. Using that metaphor is not branding (well, maybe a little). It’s appropriate.”

“My first whisperer book in 2001 taught new parents to ‘calm, communicate, and connect with their babies. The ‘whisperings’ of my old ladies calm me, encourage me to tell it like it is, and inspire connection, up and down the age ladder. Their voices are especially helpful when ‘the committee’—you know, the critical voices of your most unwise self—is in session. My whisperers remind me that I’ve been here and already learned a thing or two about getting through the hard stuff. They bring out my inner old lady, my sage self.” 

Blau will be in live interview about the book, on “Instagram Live,” with Barbara Biziou on Wed., July 24, 2024, 12:30 p.m. Eastern. Her contact for interviews is: melinblau@aol.com.

For an electronic review copy and press information, contact Judy Twersky at judy@judytwerskypr.com; (917) 597-5384. For a hard copy, check in with Anne Zaccardelli —azaccardelli@cpg.org; (212) 592-6382. 

*** Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespanby Maddy Dychtwald with Kate Hanley, Mayo Clinic Press (2024): Also out recently with a focus on woman and aging, this bool promises to provide “a holistic action plan based on leading science that helps women take advantage of the scientific, medical, psychological, and spiritual tools, tips, and advice available to them as they thrive in the second half of life.” Maddy, is the wife and partner of Age Wave author and business-of-aging expert. For information and a review copy of the book, contact Elyse Pellman, epellman@agewave.com; (510) 899-4006.

The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2024 Paul Kleyman. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman. 

To subscribe for free or unsubscribe, or if you have technical problems receiving issues of GBO or if you’d like to be removed from the list, e-mail me at paul.kleyman@earthlink.net, or pfkleyman@gmail.com or phone me at 415-821-2801.