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Brewers deal Hall to Mariners

August 19, 2009 By

Apparently the Brewers didn’t want a high salaried starting pitcher in exchange for infielder Bill Hall, so Milwaukee sent Hall to Seattle for minor league RHP Ruben Flores.

The 25 year old Flores was a 12th round pick in the 2003 First Year Player Draft.  Flores is currently with Class-A High Desert of the California League where he is 1-0 with a 13.06 ERA (15 er/10.1 ip) in eight relief appearances.  He began the season with Class-A Clinton of the Midwest League.  Between the two teams this season, Flores is 3-2 with a 4.39 ERA and 61 strikeouts in 44 relief appearances.

Flores will be assigned to the Brevard County Manatees of the Florida State League.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

ACT scores show racial divide

August 19, 2009 By

Different racial groups continue to score differently on the high school A.C.T. college admission tests in Wisconsin. The percentage of Wisconsin’s ACT takers who were students of color increased 1.1 percent from last year, to 12.8 percent.

White students had a composite score of 22.9, up one-tenth of a point from last year. Native American students had a composite score of 20.7, 2.2 points higher than the national average. Wisconsin’s Asian students had a composite score of 20.3, 3.2 points below the national average. Hispanic students from Wisconsin had a composite score of 19.7, one full point higher than their peers nationally. African American students had a composite score of 16.8, down two-tenths of a point from last year and one-tenth of a point lower than their peers nationally.

The state’s 22.3 composite score on the 2009 ACT college admissions exam report places the state third in the nation. Sixty seven percent of the state’s 2009 graduates took the exam during their high school years, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.

Filed Under: Education

Barrett holds press conference

August 19, 2009 By

Anthony Peters IMAGE: Milwaukee Co. Sheriff's Dept.Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett spoke with reporters Wednesday, for the first time since being released from the hospital Monday. Barrett credited his niece, Molly, West Allis police and emergency workers, Milwaukee police and the staff at Froedert Hospital, for the help he received after being assaulted outside State Fair Park Saturday night. A man attacked Barrett after he responded to cries for help, from a woman with a baby.

“I can’t think of a situation like this were people would not have responded the way I did,” Barrett said. “When someone says call 911, you call 911. It’s that straightforward.” Barrett says he initially found “bizarre,” a statement by the assailant’s mother that the mayor provoked her son. The man was the baby’s father, and police say the man assaulted Barrett as the mayor attempted to make that 911 call. “Within seconds we realized that the problem was not with the baby, it was with the man,” Barrett said, describing suspect Anthony Peters as being “very, very agitated.”

Barrett says he mentioned the remark by Peter’s mother to his wife Chris. “She had a little different reaction,” said Peters. “A mother’s love is blind.” Barrett, who suffered a shattered hand, knocked out teeth and gashes on his face and back of his head, said little regarding the actual assault, which is now a criminal case against the 20 year-old suspect. According to witnesses, Peters beat Barrett with a metal baton. Peters is being held in the Milwaukee County Jail on $25,000 bail.

AUDIO: Bob Hague reports (:60 MP3)

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Push to get X-ray techs licensed

August 19, 2009 By

X-ray techs don’t need to be licensed in Wisconsin but there is again a push to change that. The Senate Health Committee heard testimony Tuesday about a bill requiring all radiology operators to be certified. Judy Warmuth, workforce specialist Wisconsin Hospital Association, testified for information only. She raised the possibility of the Department of Regulation and Licensing being bogged down while trying to certify 10,000 radiology applicants.

“They would be the third largest group of licensees in the department,” says Warmuth.

Radiology Educator Susan Sanson of Greenfield says the agency will be able to manage as up to 7,000 are already registered through a separate certification exam. She calls this group “a pass through” in the licensing process.

“We do license the people that wash our dogs, cut our hair but not those who apply ionizing radiation to our hair,” says Sanson in support of the bill.

State Representative Terese Berceau (D-Madison) told a story of a technician making a mistake on her X-ray which caused him to repeat the procedure. Berceau, a cancer survivor, had already received extensive chemotherapy and was trying to limit her radiation exposure as much as possible.

It’s not the first time the certification idea has come up. A similar bill cleared the full Senate but ran out of time.

AUDIO: Brian Moon reports (MP3 :80)

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Picking up the tab on colonoscopies

August 19, 2009 By

Insurers would have to cover the cost of colorectal screenings for those 50 and older or younger persons considered high risk under a bill in Madison. At a Senate Health and Health Insurance Committee hearing Tuesday, UW Professor of Radiology Dr. Perry Pickhardt testified in support saying colorectal cancer is highly preventable. The process involves detecting and eliminating pre-cancerous polyps. This differs from other major cancers like breast and lung in which tests can only discover cancerous cells.

Pickhardt adds a conventional colonoscopy is around $1500, $500 for a virtual version, compared to chemotherapy for colorectal cancer at $200,000 a UW patient.

A man testified he was denied by his insurance company four years ago of having a routine colonoscopy because he did not have any symptoms. Chet Waldhart did not get the procedure because of the out of pocket cost. He came down with stage four, incurable colorectal cancer last year. Physicians have since told him that four years ago the disease would’ve been caught and treated much more easily than the extensive chemotherapy and surgery he’s since undergone.

State Senator Bob Wirch (D-Pleasant Prarie), who introduced the measure, cited numbers by the American Cancer Society in which the 52,000 Americans expected to die from the disease each year, more than half could be saved through proper testing.

Colorectal Cancer is the second leading cancer killer in Wisconsin.

AUDIO: Chet Waldhart’s testimony (MP3 5:21)

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, Legislature
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