A federal judge on Monday denied an attempt to lump together in a class-action suit thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims who were exposed to poisonous fumes in trailer homes issued by the government. U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt said that each person’s claim is unique and cannot be bundled with the claims of other alleged victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has acknowledged that the trailers had unsafe levels of the preservative formaldehyde, which can cause cancer and other ailments.

Children of Katrina families are sickest in U.S. The children of families displaced from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have serious health and mental ailments, a new study says. In fact, the report, released Monday by the New York-based Children’s Health Fund, are among some of the sickest children in the nation. One of the most alarming findings: 41 percent of children younger than 4 were diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia, more than twice the rate of children living in New York City homeless shelters and more than twice the Centers for Disease Control’s rate for high-risk minority populations, Irwin Redlener, president of the group and the study’s author, told USA Today. These children are “the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.,” Redlener told Newsweek. “As awful as the initial response to Katrina looked on television, it’s been dwarfed by the ineptitude and disorganization of the recovery.” More than half the kids had behavioral or learning problems. Also, 42 percent had respiratory infections and disorders that may be linked to formaldehyde and crowding in the trailers supplied by the government, but later declared unsafe. After Katrina, the Children’s Health Fund, a non-profit group that provides health care to children, set up mobile clinics throughout the Gulf Coast, including one outside Renaissance Village in Baton Rouge, then the largest Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park in the region. Heath Fund researchers came to their conclusions after reviewing the medical records of 261 children who lived in a federally funded Baton Rouge trailer park until early summer, Redlener said.  The study made some immediate recommendations: FEMA must provide contact information for these children so their medical needs can be treated and funding needs to be extended so that the Katrina children can get further medical attention.

Jurors in accused mass murderer’s trial to be named today. In an Atlanta courtroom today, 12 jurors and six alternates will learn whether they are the ones who will decide the fate of Brian Nichols, the 36-year-old accused of shooting to death his judge, a court reporter and two law-enforcement officials during a daring escape three years ago from the Fulton County Courthouse. When – and if – the trial begins on Monday, as planned, it will begin a long-awaited march toward justice that has been stymied by a series of delays. In addition to the change in judges – from Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller to Judge James Bodiford – defense attorneys convinced the original judge that the state had kicked in far too little for a case of this magnitude, compelling him to shelve the case until it had infused more money into the public defender system. The case is expected to be the most costly in Georgia history. Already, the defense has spent an astronomical $1.2 million, and it’s still nearly a week before trial. In a recent chapter in the case, Bodiford found that Nichols’ alleged confession was not the result of his deteriorated mental capacity following his arrest. The defense is arguing that Nichols is innocent by reason of insanity. Nichols is facing death if convicted.

Nagin wants to know how his residents were treated. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin wants to know how his city’s residents were treated during the latest monster storm, Hurricane Gustav, to rock the Big Easy. As reports have surfaced that some city agencies didn’t learn from dealing with killer Katrina, Nagin has instituted a special phone hotline to gather and grade information on victims’ experiences. “If you evacuated with the city assisted-program, and if you went to a shelter where you want to report something, call our 3-1-1 number,” Nagin said in a news conference. His request came amid widespread reports of unsanitary or inhospitable conditions, mostly at shelters in northern Louisiana, according to The New Orleans Times-Picayune. But many shelter volunteers complained that evacuees threatened them “or acted in an unruly fashion during their stay,” the newspaper reported. The Times-Picayune also speculated that poor conditions at the Department of Social Services shelters could have been what led to the sudden resignation of DSS Secretary Ann Williamson earlier this week. While the city helped transport 18,000 residents out of town, all New Orleanians had the option of staying at DSS shelters.

A million are left homeless in Haiti after hurricanes.

The series of hard-hitting storms back to back in Haiti could have left about 1 million of the country’s citizens homeless, says Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis. A total of four storms (Faye, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) slammed the nation in just a few weeks, destroying towns and killing over 550 people. Pierre-Louis appealed to the international community to help Haiti. “We need major support and it is time for the world to understand that. We’ve suffered too much in this country,” she said. A portion the city of Gonaives will have to rebuild somewhere else due to damage it suffered from the hurricane. She also told the BBC that if things don’t get better in the nation soon, she could be ousted from office by angry citizens. Even before the killer storms pummeled the tiny island nation, it had the dubious distinction of being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and many were starving to death.

They fear that stubborn squatters could face the same fate as Katrina victims.

“Stay and die” is the warning from weather officials who say that Hurricane Ike, which is steaming toward the Texas Gulf Coast, could be a deadly monster as sinister as his evil cousin, Katrina. “All neighborhoods … and possibly entire coastal communities … will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide,” the advisory from the National Weather Service said. Read more about the warning and how people are reacting here.

Look at the photos and post your comments.
It’s been three years since Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast. See the pictures and remember the worst storm in U.S. history. Do you think we’re prepared for a new wave of killer storms that could visit us this year? Here’s more.

Hurricane Gustav visited New Orleans but left it relatively unscathed

Eager to get back to the Big Easy, thousands of residents poured back into New Orleans following the city’s encounter with Gustav. But Mayor Ray Nagin was forced to back down from his own decree – that New Orleanians wait until checkpoints were officially lifted before returning – as traffic flooded the Causeway toward the city. By midnight, the surge was seemingly unstoppable for homesick residents, and eight hours later, Nagin gave up. “No one will be turned back if you have an identification card that you live in this area,” Nagin said in a radio interview. “This is not the best time for them to return, but so be it.” The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “Nagin’s unexpected decision caused confusion among motorists and law enforcement agencies in both Jefferson and Orleans, who were helping manage reentry traffic.” There were several reasons that officials wanted to prevent residents from returning to New Orleans so soon after Gustav, including downed power lines, flooding, and no power or running water in some areas. Even at that, the destruction wasn’t even close to that of Hurricane Katrina three years earlier.

Tens of thousands sought shelter outside of the Bayou State

With three-year-old Katrina still fresh on their minds, tens of thousands of Louisiana residents fled the wind-whipped, water-soaked Bayou State Monday seeking safer ground in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. As an angry Hurricane Gustav barreled down on their homes, businesses neighborhoods, they traveled by car, train, bus and plane, determined not to be the ones seen on TV waving for helicopter rescue squads to deliver them. As many as 82,000 Louisiana residents crammed into shelters spread across eight states, according to Christina Stephens, a spokeswoman for the state. She told CNN that the Louisiana Department of Social Services had set up two shelters, including two in Shreveport, one in Bastrop and one more in Monroe – holding 10,000 people. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hooked up with the Red Cross to administer services from shelters in Shreveport and Alexandria – holding 5,000 people. According to Mississippi state officials, some 12,400 Louisiana residents had flowed into the state. Officials set up a phone registry so that people can find out where their relatives and loved ones are located. The number is 1-800-258-9822. State officials want residents to stay in their homes – even after Gustav passes by. “They’ll let people know when it’s safe to return,” Stephens said. This is important, she said because there are still dangers from threats posed by downed power lines and trees, floodwater and debris. “It’s really crowded, and everybody’s just trying to do their best,” Kesha Harlow, who was there with her daughter, 8, and her son, 2 months. “We’re just waiting for the storm to blow over.” New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has appealed to those who fled to stay put until the end of the week, which will give workers time to secure weakened levees and downed power lines and drain flooded streets.

Gulf coast braces for the “Storm of the Century”

With close to 300,000 people evacuated from New Orleans by train, bus and automobile, the city hit three years ago by Hurricane Katrina is now a ghost town. Read about safety and storm preparations to brace for what Mayor Ray Nagin calls “the Storm of The Century” here.

Not all fat created equal. Fat in obese patients is “sick” when compared to fat in lean patients, Temple University scientists say.   The same the cells in diabetics’ fat tissue aren’t working properly and as a result, are sicker than cells found in lean patients’ fat tissue, a study published in the September issue of Diabetes finds. Lead author Guenther Boden, M.D. theorizes that “sick fat” could more fully explain the link between obesity and higher risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Researchers from the departments of endocrinology, biochemistry and surgery at the Temple University School of Medicine took fat biopsies from the upper thighs of six lean and six obese patients and found significant differences at the cellular level. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is found in every cell and helps synthesize proteins and monitor how they’re folded. The stress that Boden describes causes the ER in fat cells to produce several proteins that ultimately lead to insulin resistance, which has been found to play a major role in the development and progression of obesity-related conditions.

Study: Almost 1,000 People Died In Louisiana From Katrina

On the three-year anniversary of Hrricane Katrina, a new study says the storm caused the deaths of some 986 deaths in Louisiana either directly or indirectly, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 80 years. Find out more at Vital Signs.