Colorado Matters' coverage of the wastewater spill that turned the Animas river yellow in southwestern Colorado brought some thoughts from Gen Spangler of Littleton. She's concerned that too many people are putting all the blame for the spill on the Environmental Protection Agency. "That's like saying that it's the fireman's fault for not saving my home during a forest fire," she says. "Why don't people ask how many successful cleanups have been completed over the past 25 years?"
On Monday we spoke with Lisa Teesch-Maguire, a prosecutor on the Aurora theater shooting trial. She's leading a group of advocates who are helping victims testify this week in the final sentencing phase of James Holmes. She says the path to recovery for victims can be long and uncertain.
"Every survivor's different and their process of recovery is different. For many victims and survivors they didn't take the opportunity to immediately go to counseling or therapy particularly because we're talking about people who went to a midnight movie that was batman which generally puts you in the young male age range," Teesch-Maguire said. "And generally young males don't think it's appropriate for them to go to therapy of counseling. They think they can be strong and that they can overcome whatever happened to them."
Ernest Duff, the program director of the "Aurora Strong Resilience Center," sent an email telling us the center offers free help for victims and their families -- and any others who need support. It opened in July. Visit the center's website by clicking here.
Our interview of a 9 year old budding lemonade baron from Broomfield struck a chord with listeners. Jack Bonneau runs four lemonade stands -- called Jack's Stands at farmer's markets in Westminster, Erie, Lafayette and Louisville. He mans one of them. The others are staffed by other kids who share in the profits with Bonneau. Here's his advice to kids who want to start their own businesses.
"Have fun doing it, make sure it's something you really want to do and you're passionate about," Bonneau told Colorado Matters. "Also just make sure you're really going to be committed to it, not just leave it go and make someone else work for it. Make sure you're going to be committed to it for all your life and just have fun doing it!"
That prompted this Facebook response from Diana Mageehon of Roseburg, Oregon: "I hope you make a gazillion dollars and can buy out Donald Trump!!!"
Finally, Chad Robinson of Aurora called us to weigh in on our conversation with Dr. Alan Altman, who helped get federal approval for the first drug to treat Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder or HSDD in women. The drug, Addyi, is being touted as "pink Viagra" and Altman is on the advisory board for Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which makes it.
"In my opinion, because I am no professional in this area, is pharmaceuticals come up with this disorder, that disorder, all these different disorders with a fancy name to it and then they give out a pill and they make lots of money on the pill," Robinson says. "I don't think women's low sex drive needs to be handled by a pill. A lot of those issues -- as a masters in psychology -- can be treated through therapy and don't need a drug. But they don't talk about it because they don't make money on that."
We looked into the issue some more, and found that HSDD first made an appearance in the revised version of the third "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" -- published by the American Psychiatric Association -- in 1987. Altman also mentioned that therapy is always recommended where HSDD is concerned and that accompanies any prescription of the drug.
