New England Public Radio

After Weekend Of Ebola Scares, Patrick And Health Officials Seek To Reassure Public

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is trying to reassure the state’s residents, after two Ebola scares over the holiday weekend.

Health officials, public safety personnel, cabinet secretaries and the mayor of Boston filed into a briefing room at Logan airport. They stood behind Governor Patrick, who told the public not to be alarmed.

“I want to make clear that there have been no confirmed cases of Ebola in Massachusetts,” Patrick said.

Officials repeated many times that Ebola is spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids.

“If you are in an airport, if you are in the room, beyond three feet, beyond the social space of an individual who is sick, you are not at risk for contracting or getting the Ebola virus,” says Dr. Huy Nguyen, who directs the Boston Public Health Commission.

Even so, on Monday, emergency crews wearing full protective gear escorted five passengers off a flight from Dubai. A day earlier, a man who had traveled to Liberia showed up at a Braintree clinic with flu-like symptoms, also triggering a full “hazardous material” response.

Officials say, in those cases, first responders were using an excess of caution.

Seven Years After Taking Office, Governor Patrick Says He’s Ready To Grant Some Pardons

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick says he’s ready to grant some pardons. It’s just a few months before he leaves office and the governor hasn’t granted any in more than seven years on the job, having turned down the only one recommended to him.

“The governor’s power isn’t limited to pardons. In other words, you can say I’m not going to pardon the crime, but I’m going to commute the sentence to time-served or something less than the original sentence,” Patrick told WGBH radio. “And there has to be a basis for that, a reason for that.”

Patrick says he is studying the cases of three people recommended by the parole board. That includes two individuals with drug convictions, and one who was connected to an armed assault.

The governor notes that any pardon or commutation must be voted on by the state’s elected Governor’s Council.

The State House News Service contributed to this report.

Governor Supports UMass Officials, But Says Family Of Student Informant Has ‘Justifiable Questions’

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is standing by UMass over the case of a student who worked as a confidential informant, before overdosing on heroin.

The student was caught dealing LSD and the club drug Molly, and agreed to work as an informant for UMass police, to avoid punishment or his parents finding out.

Ten months later, he died of an overdose.

The details came out in a Boston Globe story, with the student’s mother angry at the university for not keeping the family informed.

Asked if UMass officials should’ve done more to help the student, Patrick says he supports the school.

“You know, I don’t know enough about the details to second-guess them,'” Patrick told reporters Tuesday. “But I know that there’s a lot of emphasis on trying to understand what the facts are, and get underneath them, to communicate with the family, who I think have a lot of justifiable questions.”

UMass officials in a statement say they did not know the student was using heroin, and twice offered him assistance. They say they’re reviewing the policy for using students as informants in drug cases, including whether to require treatment and whether to contact parents.

While the school is considering those changes, UMass police will not use any more students as confidential informants. That’s according to an email the school’s chancellor sent Tuesday evening to UMass students and staff.

Updated with new information at 10:42 a.m. on Oct. 1, 2014.

New England Public Radio’s Sarah Birnbaum contributed to this report.

Patrick: Boston’s Inclusion In Counter Terrorism Program Not A Sign Of Trouble

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick says Boston was chosen to take part in a counter-terrorism initiative because of how the area’s law enforcement agencies responded to the Marathon bombing.

The governor says Boston’s selection for the program in no way means the city is a breeding ground for terrorism.

“There is absolutely nothing in the classified intelligence that I have reviewed, by the way, and been briefed on that indicates that. So this really about preparedness and it’s about how we practice, so that we can have as successful an intervention in terrorist activity at home as possible,” says Patrick

Boston, Los Angeles and Minneapolis will host programs aimed at dissuading people from joining extremist groups, such as the so-called Islamic State, which counter-terrorism officials say have active recruitment campaigns on social media. A Department of Justice statement says the programs will involve community representatives, public safety officials and religious leaders.

 

Patrick Shares Criticism Of Zohydro Approval by FDA

Anti-addiction activists are calling for Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to step down. They say her agency’s policies have contributed to a national epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse.

In a letter released Wednesday, more than a dozen groups criticized the FDA’s approval last October of the painkiller Zohydro against the recommendation of its own medical advisers.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who tried unsuccessfully to ban its use in the state, says he doesn’t have a position on whether Hamburg should resign. But he remains critical of the decision to approve the drug.

“And knowing the addiction epidemic that we’re dealing with all over the country, including here in Massachusetts, approving it without it being in a tamper-proof format is irresponsible,” says Patrick.

Commissioner Hamburg has supported broad use of Zohydro, noting that 100 million Americans reportedly suffer from chronic pain.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

A New Supreme Judicial Court To Hear Arguments For First Time

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reconvenes for oral arguments Tuesday, after its summer break and a pair of personnel changes.

When the justices gather to hear their first case — an appeal from a Pittsfield man convicted of an assault with a box cutter — it’ll be the first time since 1997 that Roderick Ireland is not serving on the court.

Ireland – a Springfield native – stepped down as chief justice last month as he approaches his 70th birthday, the mandatory retirement age for state judges in Massachusetts. He was replaced in the top job by associate justice Ralph Gants, sworn in a few weeks ago by Gov. Deval Patrick

Gants is the court’s first Jewish chief justice. Ireland was its first African American.

The vacancy created by all of this was filled by Boston lawyer Geraldine Hines, the first African American woman to serve on the court.