Multimedia Reporting (Bradford-Noland)

Matt Argubright stands out in the School of Education. In his Children’s Literature in Elementary Education class at the University of Kansas, Argubright is one of only two male students in the 24-person class. Beth Cigler, a retired elementary school teacher and associate professor, has been teaching in the KU School of Education for eight years. She said has never had more than three male students at a time in her class. Some semesters she has no men at all. Though Cigler finds it unfortunate more males aren’t enrolled in her class, she feels the classroom atmosphere gives the male students a realistic view of the elementary teaching profession.

“It prepares them (male students) to live in this female world of elementary teaching,” said Cigler.

According to the National Education Association, the number of male teachers in the public school system is the lowest it has been in 40 years. The small number of male educators is reflected in the enrollment numbers of male students in the KU School of Education. According to the school’s program assistant, Paula Naughtin, there are 308 students earning a bachelor’s degree in the School of Education. Of those students, 237 of them are female and 71 are male.

“I first wanted to be a teacher when I was in seventh or eighth grade, I never had a male teacher growing up and at one point it hit me. It seemed like a shame that there weren't more male teachers and almost became a chip on my shoulder,” said Argubright, a first year student in the School of Education from Overland Park. “It frustrated me and kind of became a rallying cause.”

An NEA survey said men make up 21 percent of the nation’s 3 million teachers. The most drastic decline of male teachers is in elementary education with only 9 percent of elementary teachers being male. At KU the ratio of male to female students studying elementary education is 6-to-119.

“The need for more male teachers is far greater than ever before,” said Mike Neal, assistant dean of academic services at the KU School of Education. “Principals are begging for male teachers. If you want a ready job, be a male and a good teacher and go into elementary education.”

The NEA attributes the decline of male teachers to low wages offered in teaching positions. Surveys of graduated college students illustrate the salary gap between teaching and more lucrative professions. Whereas a recent college graduate entering the engineering profession, which is a male dominated field, may earn $45, 000, a new teacher may earn only $30,000. According to the NEA, Kansas was among the states with an average teaching salary declining 5 percent or more in the 2004-2005 school year. However, Kansas, at 33.4 percent, has the highest number of male teachers in public schools in the United States.

Dale Koerner is a fifth grade teacher at Langston Hughes Elementary, 1101 George Williams Way, in Lawrence. Koerner has been working in education for 34 years. This is his first year at Langston Hughes Elementary. He is one of three male teachers on staff. Koerner advises male students not to go into the teaching profession for money, but rather with the motivation and passion for teaching children.

“The most important aspect of my job is doing the best I possibly can each and everyday for each one of my students,” said Koerner. “I firmly believe we (teachers) are here to make a difference in each student’s life. I really believe that and I hope to continue teaching.”

Another factor in the lack of male teachers in the elementary school system is the age-old stereotype that elementary teaching is a women’s profession. Neal said the shortage is because of the little exposure young men have in caring for children.

“There is a lack of opportunities for men to nurture young children for obvious reasons. There are experiences men generally have not had, like babysitting,” Neal said. “The number of males given child care and leadership positions to adolescents has greatly declined.”

Secondary education is a more popular field for male teachers, but the number of male teachers in secondary education is still low. The NEA survey said only 35 percent of teachers in secondary education are male. More males are attracted to this level of education because of the ability to teach subject matters they are more interested in and the opportunity to coach students in sports.

“Students in secondary education can more easily identify with the male and female students because they have recently been at the secondary level,” Neal said. “They think, ‘I can identify more with 16 year olds than with 4 or 5 years olds.'”

But there is still a small number of male teachers in secondary education. Neal attributes this to the No Child Left Behind Act, which eliminated male dominated classes like shop and auto-repair with basic classes to help students excel in standardize tests, and Rule 10. Rule 10 allows outside people to coach school sports. Neal said many male teachers are attracted to secondary education because of the extra curricular activities, but because of Rule 10 male teachers no longer have guaranteed involvement in them. Neal estimates only a 50 percent carryover of teaching staff to coaching staff in secondary schools.

The importance to integrate males into the teaching profession is significant. The earlier the students have exposure to male teachers, the more they will benefit. It is especially beneficial to students who have divorced parents or parents that both work.

“Imagine how many young males have no adult male role models entering kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade,” Neal said. “The only stable male they identify with is the first male teacher they run across.”

Neal believes early field experience, like visiting elementary schools and shadowing elementary teachers, will encourage males to enter elementary education. But because there aren’t many images of male teachers in elementary education now, a male student might have trouble picturing himself in the education field in the future. Eventually, the KU School of Education may create scholarships and incentive programs to recruit male students into the education program. Neal said the scholarships would be similiar to those the School of Education offers to minority students and special education majors, but these scholarships would be for males who wish to enter the elementary teaching profession.

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A local organization has been chosen by the Social Welfare Bachelor’s program at the University of Kansas (BSW) to be the recipient of a non-profit fund raising event.

Each year the BSW group chooses an organization that helps out the Lawrence community and puts on an event that will raise money for the recipient’s funds. According to Stephen Kapp, Associate Professor of Social Welfare and director of the student run program, previous recipients have been the Ballard Community Center, LINK, and RVSS. This year the group chose the the Douglas County AIDS Project.

“Some of the students do volunteer work for DCAP and we have decided that they are a good organization and can use the support,” Kapp said about how they chose this year’s recipient.

The Douglas County AIDS Project, located at 2518 Ridge Ct., Suite 101, is the only facility in Douglas County that not only does free testing, but also takes on clients and provides relief funds for clients infected with the HIV/AIDS virus.

According to DCAP’s Client Care Coordinator, Gerald Downs, their organization cares for 59 HIV infected clients whose ages range from eight-years-old to 57-years-old. DCAP first works with clients in counseling and gets them to a doctor to start them on medications that help combat the disease.

HIV Educator, Heath Harding said that along with counseling and direction, the organization also gets their clients signed up for their Ryan White Card. This provides each client with funds for basic medical services and medications. DCAP also provides emergency funds for those in great financial stress. As these funds are limited, benefits such as the one being put on by BSW are very important to DCAP.

“We are the only organization that works with clients directly,” Harding said. “This money will go mainly to the emergency funds, which goes towards diagnosed clients who can’t afford medical bills.”

The benefit is being planned mainly by the social welfare group that elected them. The event will be at Abe and Jakes on E. 6th St on November 16, will begin at 6 p.m. and feature a silent auction, a raffle and two live bands. Donations will be taken at the door for those who want to contribute money towards DCAP.

“We’re so very grateful for them choosing us,” said DCAP Executive Director, Kristin Brumm. “They’ve done all the planning so far. I’ve just been trying to advertise it a little to help out.”

According to Brumm, this money could also go toward licensing and preparing for a cut in funds to free HIV testing. Kansas is cutting back this year on funding that has afforded free testing in their clinic, Brumm said.

The Lawrence-Douglas County Health Departmentalso relies greatly on DCAP

“We immediately refer patients tested positive for HIV to DCAP,” said Sue McDaneld, STD charge Nurse at the Health Department. “After that we do refer them to infectious disease specialists.”

According to McDaneld, having DCAP in the community helps raise the awareness needed to educate and prevent more infections. Most citizens in Lawrence are fully aware of AIDS and HIV and its causes, but most people don’t believe it can affect them, she said.

DCAP is also preparing for the Dec. 1, World AIDS Day. Emily Collins, an intern from KU at DCAP assisting in outreach, has been cutting long red ribbons and placing them in coffee shops, schools, stores, and health centers so that people in the Lawrence community can write down messages, prayers, or personal stories about how they’ve been affected by HIV. This is in preparation for a display they’ll construct in South Park on World AIDS Day.

DCAP plans to get the community involved for World AIDS Day by having the KU Horn Quartet play “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway show, RENT, as well as having two local bands perform and other members of the community speak.

“We all have to acknowledge that AIDS is a disease that is there in every community,” said Sue McDaneld. “It’s in something that we all do if you’re sexually active.”

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Pratt senior Blake Davis said he knew something was wrong immediately when an opponent landed on his foot and fell to the ground in an intramural game last winter. He said that he heard a loud pop as the player fell to the ground and cried in pain. The player tore his anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, which is one of the main ligaments in the knee.

“It sounded like snapping a stick of celery,” Davis said.

Dave Pfeuffer, certified athletic trainer at Neu Physical Therapy, said he treats more students during intramural basketball season than any other time of the year.

“I’d say a lot of it is the hard court, a lot of jumping is involved so you have the opportunity to land on someone’s foot or land on your ankle. I’ve probably seen, over the years, about six ACL tears from basketball,” Pfeuffer said.

Watkins Physical Therapy employee Sandra Bowman said her staff sees more injuries during basketball season as well. She said students seeking treatment for basketball injuries usually either turned an ankle or smashed a shoulder into another player or the ground.

“They do increase around intramurals. When people see the Jayhawks play, they like to get out and play too,” she said.

Intramural director Kurt Schooley said he expects about 150 teams to play in the Pre-Holiday Basketball Tournament this year and almost twice that many in the intramural league following the tournament. The tournament starts on Nov. 27. He said more students play basketball than any other intramural sport. KU Recreation Services offers both a competitive and a recreational league. Schooley said that he suggests teams entering the competitive league have experience at least up to the high school level.

“It’s up to the team, though,” he said.

Schooley said the large number of participants inevitably leads to more injuries in basketball than other sports.

“We’ve had a handful of serious injuries in basketball, but nothing like paralysis or anything life-threatening.”

Intramural athletes may be inspired by the Kansas Basketball team, but when facing an injury they don’t receive the same level of treatment. Pfeuffer said his patients’ insurance plans often limit the number of times they can be treated. Many of his patients come in for physical therapy a few times a week, compared to up to five times a day for an athlete with a full-time trainer on staff. Another problem with the limited number of visits is what patients do after their treatment ends.

“When they leave the physical therapy department here, we have no idea. They can do whatever they want basically. We can tell them that it’s a really bad idea but that’s going to be their decision,” he said.

To avoid injuries he recommends exercises such as squat presses and lunges to build leg strength. Bowman said students should practice the quick starts and stops required in basketball before playing in a game.

Davis said he plays pick-up games and lifts weights to stay in shape. The worse injury he suffered during intramurals last year was a sprained ankle. He could relate to his opponent’s pain, though, because he tore his own ACL playing football in high school.

“It isn’t really a sharp pain but it just burns like hell,” he said. “It’s like a lighter being held on the back of your knee.”

He said he hopes to avoid injury again this year in intramurals and feels confident in his team this season.

“My team’s stacked,” he said. “We’ve got a good squad.”

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Watkins Memorial Health Center is temporarily out of injectable influenza vaccine, but is giving a nasal spray substitute called FluMist.

Patty Quinlan, supervisor of nursing at Watkins, said that while the spray is not as popular as the flu shot, it may be better.

“Because it’s made from a live virus instead of an inactive one, it does offer better protection,” she said.

There are restrictions, however. The nasal spray is available only for people between the ages of 5 and 49 and cannot be used by people with long-term health problems and weakened immune systems. Pregnant women are also not allowed to get the spray vaccine. Those who do get the vaccine are warned to stay out of contact with those with a weakened immune system because it is made from a live virus. Because the nasal spray contains a live virus, which is used to make the vaccine, it could cause those with weaker immune systems to catch the flu.

The injected flu vaccine, on the other hand, has no age or health restrictions.

Doctors keep the nasal spray in a freezer and don’t bring it out until both the doctor and patient are ready. Once it is ready, the doctor or nurse sprays one drop in each of the patient’s nostrils.

“It’s so fine, some people don’t even realize they’re getting it,” said Quinlan.

Quinlan said that the flu season usually lasts from October to April and that students usually don’t fear the flu enough to get a vaccination.

“Many people are under a false sense of security that not everyone has to get it every year,” she said. “They don’t realize that you’ve lost five to seven days of classes and you feel like poo for a good 14.”

If students don’t get the vaccine, though, they should know the symptoms so they can see a doctor as a soon as possible.

“A lot of people are under the perception that it’s the stomach flu, which is in no way related to influenza,” said Dr. Robert Brown, a staff physician at Watkins. “It’s worthwhile to come in within the first day or so of recognizing symptoms.”

These symptoms include headache, body aches, fever and cough.

“Basically, you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck,” Brown said.

However, some students are well aware of danger of influenza.

“I get vaccinated every year,” Christopher Friedl-Buckland, Topeka sophomore, said. “Just because I’m young doesn’t make me immune.”

While Watkins is facing a delay on vaccinations, the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department has received its second shipment. Watkins is expecting more than 1,000 doses of the vaccine within the next week.

“In the past, we stressed that children and those 65 and older get shots, but this year, we are encouraging even healthy young people to go get the flu shots,” said Sheryl Tirol-Goodwin, communication coordinator at the Health Department “The more people are protected, the more it helps reduce the risk of influenza.”

As of last Saturday, the Health Department has given more than 1,000 doses of the vaccine and is still expecting more than 3,000.
The vaccine at the Health Department costs $21, while the nasal spray is unavailable. The injected vaccine at Watkins costs $15, and the nasal spray costs $28, but Quinlan said that it’s money well spent.

“You hear about the injection because it’s cheap and everyone gets a shot,” she said. “But the mist is a great way for the students to go.”

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It may soon be possible to prevent some of the side effects of autism if researchers are successful at learning how to diagnose it at an earlier age. Researchers at the University of Kansas have geared their focus to finding what part of the brain is responsible for the impairments of this disorder.

Professor of psychology, John Colombo, and graduate student, Christa Anderson, are studying what happens when they show social and non-social video images to a group of autistic children. This study is measuring the amounts of norepinephrine, which is a chemical that elevates under stressful situations. This new study was prompted by their recent findings in September, which found that by showing social and non-social images to these children on a computer screen, their pupils responded differently than those who do not have this disorder.

“We know that they are not typically responsive towards social situations, but we don’t know why,”

Anderson said. “It may be that they are responding aversively or they are just not interested.”

Autism is a disorder that is characterized by its deficits in social interactions and patterns of unusual behavior. Six-years-old is the average age that children are diagnosed with this disorder. However, it is possible to diagnose children who are in between the ages of 18 to 36 months. But according to researchers, this is not early enough.

Steven Warren, director of the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, said that this research is centered on one of the biggest issues in autism research.

“The problem is that we can not trace this disorder among children at an early enough age,” Warren said. “We need to be able to determine which children have autism and which ones have it at a higher risk.”

Warren said that by determining whether a child has mild autism or severe autism can make a huge impact on the appropriate treatment given to the child. A child with mild autism can eventually live independently, but a child with severe autism must have constant support.

According to Warren, this research is one of the leading studies in autism and its findings are among the most recent.

The study analyzes the amounts of norepinephrine that are created after children are shown two types of video clips. The children being studied range in ages two to five. The first type of video clip involves social interactions such as children playing with one another. The second type shows inanimate objects. An example of that is watching toys dance to music.

After the kids have watched the video images, a sample of their saliva is taken in order to measure levels of norepinephrine. This measurement hopes to show whether or not a chemical imbalance exist among children with autism and whether or not they feel uncomfortable or stressful around social situations. This is believed to be the first time norepinephrine has been measured in order to study the effects of autism. So far, no data has been analyzed, but Anderson and Colombo hope to find a link between norepinephrine and autism.

When KU researchers studied the pupil responses generated by autistic children in September, they found that the responses were atypical. After the children were shown four images on a computer screen, their eye movements were studied with the use of an eye-tracking device. This measured where the children looked and for how long.

The images shown were faces of children and animals as well as inanimate objects such as toys and landscapes. The result was that the pupils of children with autism tended to constrict towards the images of faces. They constricted strongest towards the images of other children’s faces.

“We hope that someday we can find the physiological marker and possibly diagnose it at a prenatal stage,” Anderson said.

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A University of Kansas alumnus is developing new technologies that could revolutionize heartbeats.

Current artificial pacemakers, installed in 4 million people worldwide, use a wire that leads from a transmitter in the chest, through a vein and into the heart. The wire delivers an electric pulse that pumps the heart as fast as the body requires.

But cardiologist and electrophysiologist Debra Echt says that there are a number of possible complications the current technology’s lead wire can introduce.

Echt lists problems such as blood clots in the lungs and perforation in the heart or tearing of the vein.

KU alumnus Rick Riley, co-founder, president and CEO of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based EBR Systems has worked to develop a new pacemaker that would have a wireless receiver inside the heart. The receiver, just bigger than a grain of rice, receives ultrasound waves from the transmitter, and converts them to deliver the same electric pulse.

In October 2005, Riley and his team tested their new device in 24 patients in Hong Kong and Auckland, New Zealand.

“We temporarily placed the receiver in a total of 80 locations in 24 different hearts, and each time, it paced the heart perfectly,” Riley said.

Normally, a group of cells in the heart act as a natural pacemaker, adjusting your heart rate higher or lower to supply blood to the muscles as needed.

“As you get older, sometimes your natural pacemaker will start to wear out, slowing your heart rate down to around 30 beats per minute,” said Dr. Allen Gillis, family practice physician. “This is known as a heart block, and at this point, the patient needs an artificial pacemaker.”

Since the mid 1960’s, pacemakers have consisted of the battery powered pulse generator, which rests just under the skin of the chest and connects to a lead wire.

The lead wire must penetrate a vein, and eventually lead into the right side of the heart. When implanted, the wire will deliver an electric impulse to the right ventricle, contracting the muscle and pushing blood into the lungs for oxygen collection.

Studies have shown that it’s actually better for the heart to have the electric pulse in the left ventricle, where the heart pushes the blood through the body.

“If you pace on the right side too much, you can run into heart failure, and that’s definitely not what we want to see,” said Dr. Patrick Allen, internal specialist.

But the lead wire for an artificial pacemaker can’t go into the left ventricle, because it could form clots that could damage other organs in the body. It must also cross a heart valve, where leaking could occur.

“When a lead goes across the valve, it can’t close completely and it causes the valve to leak,” Echt said. “Since the left side of the heart provides the major pumping to the body, leaking significantly impairs the heart pumping action.”

An advantage of EBR Systems’ new mechanism is that it’s wireless. The transmitter still sits under the skin of the chest, but instead of sending electrical impulses through a wire, it sends ultrasound waves to the tiny receiver inside the left ventricle.

The receiver then uses piezoelectricity, where special crystals convert the mechanical ultrasound wave into a “spark” that stimulates the heart muscle.

“It’s the same basic principle as the starter on your gas grill. You push the button, a mechanical contact [or wave] hits a piezoelectric material, and generates a spark,” Riley said.

Because there is no wire to act as antenna, patients with the new pacemaker could do more of the everyday things, from which they would otherwise have to stay away.

“I can’t go around anything with a strong electromagnetic field,” said Roger Gossard, current pacemaker patient. “I couldn’t use an arc welder or stand around a microwave for too long. I can’t go through metal detectors or get wanded at the airport.”

With the wireless technology, electromagnetic fields are no concern, but there are other uses for ultrasound that could potentially interfere with the signal. Other uses include diagnostic ultrasound, for seeing pictures of what’s inside the body, and therapeutic ultrasound, which uses the waves to heat muscles in the body for rehabilitation.

Riley says they’ve found a way around these potential interferences by using a much lower frequency.

“While diagnostic ultrasound operates from two to five megahertz and therapeutic ultrasound goes from 10 to 20, our system will operate around one megahertz,” Riley said.

Riley graduated from KU in 1977 with a degree in computer science and earned a graduate degree from Arizona State in industrial engineering in 1979.

He started working with pacemakers for Minneapolis based Medtronic in 1982, helping to develop the first microprocessor for an artificial pacemaker, and working on the implantable defibrillator.

With 20 years of combined heart-research and development experience from Medtronic and San Jose-based Cardiac Pathways, Riley broke off to found EBR Systems in 2002.

“We started EBR with one vision,” Riley said. “We wanted to develop a wireless pacemaker.”

Riley and his team realized much of that goal in the October 2005 tests in Hong Kong and Auckland, with a 100 percent success rate.

The team had to leave the country to test the new technology on humans, because the FDA hasn’t yet approved the system. Riley said without FDA approval, human testing within the U.S. is much more complicated. But he said the FDA needs human tests before the new technology could be considered for approval.

“We had to be careful of where and who we picked for the clinical application, because this research will go to the FDA,” Riley said.

Dr. C.P. Lau, Electrophysiologist at the University of Hong Kong and Dr. Warren Smith, Electrophysiologist at the University of Auckland performed the surgeries in their respective countries.

Riley said that because the tests went so well, once the results were back, excited investors started pouring in.

“The tests were completed in mid-October, and by mid-November, we had already raised $21 million.”

The tests in Hong Kong and Auckland were a great success and proved for the first time that a wireless pacemaker could work. Those tests were only for short-term application, though. Now Riley and his team are working to further develop their device to be implanted long-term.

With a finished product in the works, Riley reflects on the long journey it has taken him to get where he is.

“Software systems just weren’t for me,” Riley said. “I’ve found that your major isn’t what defines you, because in life, you will always pursue the goals that make you happy.”

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Psychologists used to think that depressed people had difficulty with attention and focus. According to research done by Dr. Ruth Ann Atchley and Dr. Stephen Ilardi, associate professors of psychology at the University of Kansas, they were wrong. It’s not that depressed people can’t pay attention. They just focus on the negative.

“The question is, what captures depressed people’s attention?” Atchley said.
In a recent study that has yet to be published, Atchley and Ilardi showed depressed, formerly depressed and non-depressed people (the control group) various stimuli. When shown neutral stimuli, such as words like coin, house or tool, they found that the brains of depressed people made smaller than normal electrical responses.

However, when given negative stimuli, such as words like loser, measles or cancer, the depressed brains made larger responses than even a normal brain.

“People with a history of depression and people who are currently depressed actually have an increased response,” Ilardi said. “In other words, their attentional functioning actually looks superior. It’s not that people with depression don’t have the ability to lock in on stuff, it’s just that if something is neutral, it’s insignificant to them.”

Atchley said that depressed people aren’t simply distracted in general. In fact, they can be hyper-sensitive to the right stimuli.

Ilardi said, “It’s not like depressed people have universally poor attention. It’s that they have universally poor attention for anything that’s not negative.”

Atchley and Ilardi discovered the new results by testing for a certain brain signal, called P300. According to Atchley, the signal is named P because it is a positive wave and 300 because it occurs 300 milliseconds after a person sees the stimulus.

“It’s a reflection of attention,” Atchley said. “It tells us that a person is attending to a particular stimulus in the environment. This signal is normally really big if you’re attending, and gets smaller if you’re not allocating as much attention to that stimulus.”

In the past, all the P300 testing in depressed people used neutral stimuli. “The most common were just simple sounds,” Atchley said.

In the old tests, participants were asked to identify the odd beep out in a series of beeps. When participants heard the odd sound, they produced a P300 response, which was recorded by EEG, or electroencephalography, which is a net of electrodes around the head. Depressed people consistently responded to the odd sounds with a depressed P300 signal.

Like many studies before theirs, Atchley and Ilardi tested for P300 responses in depressed, formerly depressed and non-depressed people. However, for the first time, they used words with good or bad connotations. When depressed people were presented with negative words, they responded with a stronger than normal P300 signal.

“Their attentional capacity is probably very much dependent on what task you’re asking them to do,” Atchley said. In the past, it was interpreted as a generalized attention deficit.

“They’re going to be even more sensitive to some kinds of information,” Atchley said. “If they’re hypersensitive to the negative stuff, that might influence the way you talk to a patient with depression.”

Ilardi said, “Depressed people have a particular negative cast on everything that they think about. Depression is like waking up one morning and someone had put these incredibly dark glasses on you, and you didn’t know it. You weren’t aware you had them on. And you go outside with a friend, it’s a beautiful sunny day, and they say, ‘Wow! Look at all the brilliant, beautiful colors, what a great day!’ And all you’re seeing is gray, dark. Depression filters out all the positive, all the light, all the color.”

Atchley and Ilardi hope that their research will help psychologists and other mental health professionals understand people suffering from depression. “If we understand their cognitive biases and their general way of thinking about the world, we can do a lot of things to help those folks more effectively than we currently do,” Atchley said.

Ilardi said that depression dampens people’s memory and causes them to only remember negative things. “It affects their interpretation of events,” Ilardi said. “So, if they’re talking to a friend on the phone, and their friend says, ‘Hold on, I’ve got a call coming,’ and they put them on call waiting. Their immediate interpretation would be, ‘They don’t like me. They don’t want to talk to me. I’m boring,’ etc, whereas a normal person wouldn’t think much of it.”

Atchley said the results from this study could be used for improving diagnoses of depression. Furthermore, since formerly depressed people also showed a weaker P300 response, a person’s response to a P300 test might be used to determine risk factors for relapsing into depression.

Atchley and Ilardi are now testing the P300 response of depressed people by using words with positive connotations. They hope to determine whether or not depressed people respond strongly to emotional situations in general or just to negative situations.

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A group of students and professors at the University of Kansas, including biochemists and molecular biologists, are inching closer to creating a vaccine that could prevent dysentery and other severe intestinal illnesses.

The National Institutes of Health recently approved funds that will help the team reach its goal. Some members of the team have been working since 1995 to find a vaccine that, if proven effective, could prevent high death rates in developing countries, where the infection is most prevalent. Dysentery, a severe form of bloody diarrhea, can be fatal. According to the World Health Organization's Web site, of the 164.7 million cases of shigellosis, an infection that causes dysentery, 163.2 are in developing countries. Each year, an estimated 1.1 million people die from the infection.

“It certainly could save a lot of lives and it certainly could save a lot of misery for people traveling to other countries or people living in other countries where these organisms are really common,” said Bill Picking, associate professor of biological sciences and leader of the project.

Picking and his group, consisting of three graduate students, three undergraduate students and a research assistant, spend time each day in their lab in Haworth Hall, trying to understand the workings of the bacteria Shigella, the cause of Shigellosis.

“The World Health Organization has set a number of goals to target its eradication in the next 10 to 15 years. We’re hoping that with this vaccine we can actually get that done and eliminate it as a problem,” said Aaron Markham, a graduate student in pharmaceutical chemistry.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Web site, Shigella bacteria cause abdominal pain, cramps, diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and bloody stools. Water or food contaminated with feces containing Shigella is a major cause of illness, usually brought about by unsanitary food handling. Approximately 300,000 cases of Shigella-related illnesses occur in the United States each year. That number is much higher in developing countries, especially Africa.

The bacteria attack cells in the large intestine and begin to grow once inside the cells.

“The goal of the lab is to understand the mechanism ultimately so we can either create a drug that will help, but preferentially a vaccine,” Picking said.

Picking’s team is attempting to identify proteins that would make good targets for a vaccine. Dr. Russ Middaugh, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and a partner in the project, works to make the proteins stronger, an essential part of finding a vaccine. Proteins must stay intact to ensure proper working of a potential vaccine. The vaccine would need to be durable enough to survive in places such as rural Africa where refrigeration isn’t an option and quick transport is almost impossible.

Picking said that Shigella bacteria are most common in areas with contaminated water and little medical care. But he also said the disease is found in the U.S, most often affecting children who transfer germs hand-to-mouth.

Wendy Picking, a partner in the project, said the team will know the cost of the vaccine and how long it will be effective only once a vaccine has been created. She wouldn't comment on the amount of the recent funds from the National Institutes of Health.

Although the National Institutes of Health has agreed to fund the group’s work, Picking said he doesn’t expect to see any of the money until the spring.

“It’s a relatively slow process. You have to show them enough preliminary data and enough promise that they think, ‘OK, yes, this might work.’ Then they give you the money to do it,” Picking said.

In the meantime, funds previously received from the National Institutes of Health are paying for the team's day-to-day expenses, which include staff pay and supplies.

The team hopes it will be able to begin testing on mice in the summer, the first step toward the long-term goal of human testing. The animal testing will take place at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland. The funding from NIH is for a two-year period, known as a “pilot study.”

Middaugh said the team will begin work on higher animals if the mice testing is successful.

“The fact of the matter is, there are no great animal models. They’re really more a system that we use to develop the vaccine. We don’t pretend that what we see in animals is what we’re going to see in humans. We know that often is not the case,” Middaugh said.

If the drug succeeds at all levels of animal testing, Picking said a company may be interested in taking over the research.

“The initial research on vaccines typically occurs at academic labs like this one. But ultimately for it to turn into a real vaccine that really gets on the market, a company at some point needs to take that over because it just takes too much money, hundreds of millions of dollars,” Picking said.

Picking has been pursuing a vaccine since 1995 yet, in a sense, the project is just beginning.

“That whole process, going all the way to market, could take 10 years. It’s a very long, very expensive process, getting a drug from the laboratory out onto the market,” he said.

The discovery of the desired vaccine would open doors to making similar vaccines against other types of organisms that share the same type of molecular mechanism as the one Picking is studying. Other illnesses that share the same mechanism include cystic fibrosis and more common ailments caused by food poisoning, such as salmonella, Picking said.

“It could lead to vaccines that could greatly impact the people in this country,” Picking said.

There are only two other institutions in the country that are searching for a vaccine to combat Shigella bacteria, Picking said. These are the aforementioned Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the University of Maryland Center for Vaccine Development.

“We collaborate with both of those groups. It’s pretty much a sharing situation,” Picking said.

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George Wilson, associate vice provost for research at the University of Kansas, is recieving an award for 30 years of work in electrochemistry. Wilson will receive the award in February at The Pittsburgh Conference Awards Symposium in Chicago. One of the projects he has been working on for the last 15 years is an implatantable glucose sensor for diabetes patients. Though the sensor works, Wilson is not putting it on the market because it isn’t perfect just yet.

“The developed device has to be acceptable to patients. New and different technology has no value if the patient doesn’t see the benefit from it,” Wilson said. He is also a Higuchi distinguished professor of chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry at KU.

According to the American Diabetes Association, 7percent of Americans have diabetes. Wilson’s sensor helps type one diabetes patients, whose bodies don’t produce insulin. Type one patients give themselves insulin shots at least twice a day and check their glucose levels by pricking their fingers up to four times a day. They monitor their food intake carefully and exercise regularly to stay healthy. Easing up on their routine could result in blindness, ligament amputation, kidney failure or cardiovascular disease.

“Diabetes patients just don’t get a vacation, especially type one patients,” said Nancy Donahey, a certified diabetes educator at Lawrence Memorial Hospital Diabetes Education Center. Donahey estimates 7,160 people in the Douglas County community have diabetes.

Wilson’s sensor could ultimately make diabetes patients' lives easier. Instead having to prick their finger and guessing when glucose levels are getting too high or too low, patients inject the sensor, which is twice the size of a strand of human hair, into their skin where it remains for seven days. The sensor monitors the amount of glucose in the body and warns the patients when it begins to drop or raise to dangerous levels.

“If a sensor (like Wilson’s) existed, it would be a lot easier for patients, not having to poke themselves multiple times a day with a needle,” said Ann Chapman, coordinator of nutrition services at Watkins Memorial Health Center.

The sensor still has its flaws. One problem the sensor faces is its incompatibility with the human body. The immune system tries to destroy the implanted sensor and push it out of the skin after a week, like it would react to a splinter. In recent years, Wilson and his team have been working to make a “biosensor that is biocompatible,” so the sensor can remain in the skin without being rejected or affected by the immune system.

“If the sensor can’t be used for patients to live normal lives, than it is no good,” Wilson said.

Wilson is not ready to stop his research and teaching at KU to commercialize his implantable sensor. The Federal Drug Administration would require Wilson to make a manufactured prototype to sell it. Because so many people suffer from diabetes and the market is so large, Wilson doesn’t feel compelled to put his findings on the market too quickly.

Wilson said his ultimate dream would be to create an artificial pancreas, containing a sensor to monitor glucose. The sensor would be connected to a pump that would automatically deliver insulin when needed. The development of such a device is not expected anytime soon. However, this year there are many new devices on the market aimed at easing and improving diabetic’s lives.

“These new products make the lives of diabetics easier,” said Pat Hohman, an advanced registered nurse practitioner and a certified diabetes educator at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. “There is easier delivery, no shots and they let patients know what is going on all the time.”

According to Hohman, Medtronic, Inc., introduced the Paradigm Real-Time pump to the public last April. It is an insulin pump that measures glucose by interstitial fluids and gives readings every five minutes. At the beginning of January, Pfizer Inc. will release Exubra to the market. Exubra is the first inhaled insulin treatment that gives patients mealtime control. The new products, compared with older ones, help where the problems are and prevent higher complications, said Hohman.

Posted by Margaret VanBuskirk at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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The United States Department of Agriculture will update what food items participants in the Women, Infants and Children program will receive if its proposal is approved. Offering foods, such as whole grain bread, fruits and vegetables, which currently aren’t available to the program’s participants, is a key aspect of the proposal. WIC provides monthly vouchers for specific healthy food items to low-income, nutritionally at-risk pregnant or breast-feeding mothers, their infants and children up to five years old.

The Institute of Medicine proposed new guidelines for appropriate foods and portions for WIC to offer. USDA considered these recommendations and formed the new proposal.

“It’s time for the program to be revamped,” Linda Rippetoe, Douglas County Department of Health dietician, said. She added that WIC has run for 30 years.

The federally funded, but state administered program reaches approximately 1,500 Douglas County citizens,m Rippetoe said. In 2005, each WIC participant in Kansas received $33.14 worth of food each month according to the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service Web site.

The current WIC food package includes milk, some of which can be substituted for cheese; cereal, fruit juice, eggs and a protein source such as beans or peanut butter. The foods on the voucher are offered because of their strong nutritional values.

“The foods that are available are offered to fight the problem of obesity,” Trish Unruh, Douglas County Department of Health dietician, said.

WIC is unrelated to the Food Stamp Program and if they qualify, participants can be on both programs at the same time. While the Food Stamp Program’s mission is to end hunger and improve nutrition and health, according to the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Web site, WIC focuses on the nutrition of young children to ensure they healthily grow and develop.

To qualify, participants must be deemed by a doctor, nurse or nutritionist as being at nutrition risk. The USDA Food and Nutrition Web site defines this as having a medical or dietary based condition. A medical-based condition includes anemia, history of poor pregnancy outcome or being underweight, while poor dietary habits are an example of a dietary-based factor.

“It is not intended to provide the clients with all their nutritional needs; it isn’t enough food for all month,” Rippetoe said. “It is designed to provide some good food and make it easier on the grocery budget so the client can continue to buy other healthy food.”

Currently, no fruit items are on the voucher and the only vegetable available to WIC clients is carrots, Rippetoe said. Not even all clients qualify for these. To provide their bodies with enough nutrients to pass along to the baby, women who are nursing an infant up to one year old receive carrots along with tuna and extra dairy and juice.

Under the new plan, children will get six dollars and pregnant and nursing women will receive eight dollars in cash vouchers to buy frozen, canned or fresh fruits or vegetables.

Marty Glenn, nutrition lecturer, advises people on a low grocery budget to buy canned items.

“It’s tough to get fresh fruits and vegetables on a low budget because they really cause the grocery bill to go up,” Glenn said. “The good news is canned vegetables are really cheap and still have a high nutrition value. Frozen are a little more expensive, but still more reasonable than fresh.”

Also being added to the list of food on the voucher is two pounds of whole wheat or whole grain bread.

“Grains and pasta are real cheap,” Glenn said. “People can really stock up on these items.”

Additionally, Glenn advises the use of cheap, over the counter multivitamins to make up for nutrients they may be lacking.

“I always encourage people on a limited budget to take a multivitamin to play it safe because they have limitations on what they can get. It’s for good measure as much as anything.”

Glenn added that it is important to stay nourished for reasons other than physical well-being.

“Malnourishment or under nourishment affects your mental and physical energy. If you develop a psychological issue like depression, or even stress, it is harder to cope with these things, without good nutrition. It’s easier to deal with these things if you have energy.”

Another change is the availability of substitutions. Currently, soymilk is available to children and women with intolerance for dairy products. The new program proposes to add soy formula for infants with a dairy intolerance to the list of substitutions Rippetoe said.

The new plan is still being considered and it may take another two years until it is completely finalized and approved.

“The clients are looking forward to the change,” Rippetoe added.

One reason why the plan may take so long to be approved is a dispute over funding. While changes are being made to available food items, the funding remaining constant. This translates to the fact that other food items will be removed from the list to free up funds for produce. For example, for children ages one to five, the amount of milk supplied will decrease from 24 to 16 quarts, they will receive a dozen less eggs and 160 less fluid ounces of fruit juice.

“This program is a huge source of income for dairy and juice providers, so they are fighting to refrain from those foods being removed form the program,” Unruh said.

The lesser amount of milk, eggs and juice that participants will receive depends on what category he or she falls into. Each qualifying person in the family receives an appropriate amount of food required to be healthy for his or her age or status. Infants under one year of age are one group, children ages one to five are another, and women are divided into pregnant, exclusively nurse feeding their baby or a combination of nurse feeding and giving the infant baby food.

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For seven percent of the United States population, diabetes is not a disease it is the burden of everyday life. During the month of November, The University of Kansas Medical Center, KUMC, will provide a series of speakers to help people learn how to better manage their diabetes.

On Saturday, The Diabetes Freedom Foundation hosted approximately 250 people for a day-long event about how to maintain diabetes. Gina Gowin, executive director of the Diabetes Freedom Foundation, said the conference was the first regional conference to target doctors, health educators, and people living with diabetes.

Gowin said the conference is free to the general public and will include a day of learning sessions and workshops featuring national and regional diabetes experts.

Gowin helped plan the sessions that included cutting-edge technologies, artificial pancreas, islet cell transplants, inhaled insulin, workshops on cardiovascular disease, kidney health, and oral health care, and guidance on stress and motivation to make smart health choices.

Lisa Stehno-Bittle, P.T. and Ph.D., works at the KU department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation. Steno spoke during a session on exercises relationship with diabetes patients.

During Stehno-Bittle’s presentation she stressed the importance of exercise for diabetics. She said that everyone knows it is good to exercise, but each person has to start with a manageable plan for themselves.

Stehno-BIttle spoke about safe ways to begin an exercise routine. For prediabetic patients, losing anywhere from five to seven percent of their body mass can prevent the onset of diabetes for several years. For those individuals with diabetes, Stehno-Bittle stressed checking glucose levels a lot because it is uncertain how different people will react to exercise.

For the past seven years, Stehno-Bittle has been working on diabetes research at the University of Kansas Medical Center. The focus of Stehno-Bittle’s research is exercises effect on the cardiovascular complications with diabetes.

To test her research, Stehno-Bittle has been studying rats that have diabetes. Stehno has found that protein output can be increased, heart function can be reversed, but vessel damage cannot be reversed as well.

Rosemary Masters, a Shawnee, KS., woman, was diagnosed with diabetes in August. Masters, who found out about the conference from the paper, said she wanted to learn more about her recent condition.

“The conferences reinforced the fact that a healthy diet and exercise are the key component to handling your diabetes,” Masters said.

Dale Grube, associate dean of KU Continuing Education, said the series would show that the KU medical center is still committed to finding a cure for diabetes. Grube said the point of the series is to help better educate the public about diabetes.

Ku Medical Center will host the continuation of the series on November 18 with a free public forum. The event is a part of KU Med’s Saturday morning series. The event will begin at 7:30 a.m. and will end at noon. People can attend the program at the KU Medical Center Student Center in Kansas City, Kan.

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Americans love to think healthy, but most don’t live healthy. That soon could change. Recently, New York City law makers worked to ban trans-fatty acids from the city. Kentucky Fried Chicken announced a plan that would cut trans-fat from the menu completely. Lawrence, a sprawling city of young adults is littered with fast food chains and trans-fat. Eating the University of Kansas dining halls may be a healthier solution for students. Trans-fats are primarily generated by a process called hydrogenation, which gives food a longer shelf life. Hydrogenation produces trans-fat when hydrogen is mixed with vegetable oil. Cass Ryan, Lawrence Memorial Hospital clinical dietician, explains the process that converts unsaturated fatty acids to saturated acids. This is the process from which most of our margarines and oils come from. “Essentially it’s a man made fat, that is used in almost all of our foods,” Ryan said. According to the FDA website, as of Jan. 1, 2006 the FDA requires food manufacturers to list trans-fats on all nutrition labels as a way to help people become aware of their trans-fat intake. Ann Chapman, Coordinator of Nutrition Services and registered dietician at Watkins Health Center, said the side-effects of diets too heavily saturated with trans-fats are becoming growing problems. Heart disease and elevated cholesterol are side affects associated with diets high in trans-fats. Most people don’t realize they are at risk for such disorders until they are diagnosed. “Most students come to the center for things like strep throat, then through lab work we realize they have elevated lipids,” Chapman said. Chapman said students with elevated lipids are more at risk to heart attacks. Although it is unlikely in young adults, heart attacks have become more common. Chapman schedules appointments with students interested in learning more about becoming healthier in their diets. Chapman gives students an outline of what a healthy diet looks like but won’t set a specific diet for a person. “People have to take responsibility for their own health,” Chapman said. Chapman and Ryan both speak with students as guest lecturers. While Ryan visits high schools educating students on the dangers of unhealthy eating habits, Chapman speaks to classes at the University raising awareness of elevated lipids among other health issues. Educating people on the dangers of trans-fat ultimately helps to instill a healthier lifestyle. Nona Golledge, University dining services director agrees students need educated on proper nutrition. “Healthier choices are out there, students just need to be made aware of them,” Golledge said. The University’s residential dining halls use conola oil with zero trans-fat in their dishes, Golledge said. Nutrition ranks high on the list of improvements University dining is making. A new system called CBORD allows for the dining halls to enter recipes as a way to calculate the nutritional value of a meal. The system in use is out dated. Golledge is hopeful to get the new system running by the end of this fiscal year. The residential dining halls break down each menu item as a way to show students what they are eating. The labels list proteins, fats and carbohydrates. “Right now all the fats aren’t broken down into their sub-groups but hopefully once the new system is up we can implement that,” Golledge said. Better Bites a healthy choice nutrition meal developed by Chapman gives students the option of a healthier meal. Each Better Bites meal contains less than 600 calories and is baked or broiled rather than fried. Jaci Hiatt, Olathe junior eats Better Bites when she has lunch on campus. “It’s just a better option. I still eat things like pizza and Chick Fil A but in moderation,” Hiatt said. Hiatt believes other students aren’t aware how much healthier they could be if they cut the greasy foods they ate. Better Bites can be found at both retail and residential dining areas on campus. The University dining services participates in National Nutrition month each March. Each month Cheryl Wiley, a registered dietician, highlights some aspect of nutrition for dining services. Wiley also holds seminars to educate students as part of her work with dining services. Golledge believes the dining services work with Wiley helps students to become more educated. “Students just need pointed in the right direction,” Golledge said. Wiley sets up a display each month that can be seen at the dining halls, showcasing the aspect of nutrition highlighted. Lawrence Memorial hospital offers classes on improving health. Ryan recently held a program directed toward the elderly population in Lawrence. She addressed major concerns for the elderly such as weight loss and dining alone. Ryan believes that lowering trans-fat in a younger generation leads to a healthier adults. Her biggest concern for young generations unaware of the problems tied to consuming too many trans-fats would be that these young people are more susceptible to heart disease and other coronary diseases. When Chapman counsels a student on their eating habits, depending on their specific problem, she addresses issues concerning their diets. “I suggest for them to eat low-fat dairy, lean meats, lots of produce and to limit restaurant eating,” Chapman advised. Eating at restaurants enables a person to see what they are eating. It’s harder to limit the elements of the meal, Chapman said. Ryan said that her advice to people wishing to better their diets would be to read labels. “It may seem tedious, but label reading is the only way to ensure a healthy balance,” Ryan said. A trans-fat ban may not be in the works for Lawrence but students in Lawrence and at the University have all the components to healthy diet available to them.

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The staff at the University of Kansas Medical Center announced last week that they are using a new blood test to quickly diagnose patients who come to the hospital complaining of chest pains.

The test is designed to provide doctors and nurses with a diagnosis of the patient’s problem within 15 minutes. Older tests that are still being used at most hospitals across the country can take up to six hours to correctly identify a cardiovascular problem.

“This test allows medical technicians to figure out the problem in a matter of minutes and begin the appropriate treatment in a more timely fashion, which can go a long way in preventing the severe damage done by a heart attack and saving the life of a patient,” said Jackie Pifer, KU Medical Center’s Chest Pain Center and Rapid Response Heart Attack Care Program Coordinator.

The test works as a rapid bedside reading of the amount of troponin in a patient’s cardiac muscle. Troponin is the protein to which calcium binds with to regulate the contraction of the muscles in the heart. A test is labeled as positive when a significant level of troponin elevation above the baseline serum level is found in the patient’s blood. This is a sign that a heart attack has started to develop.

The American College of Cardiology recommends that no more than 30 minutes pass between the time a patient comes to the hospital and when he or she receives a diagnosis. Officials at the KU Medical Center made the decision to switch to the new faster test to better satisfy this recommendation.

Despite the benefits of the new test, not all cardiologists are convinced that it can be fully trusted as the only indicator of a heart attack. Dr. Cecil James Holliman of the Penn State Hershey Medical Center said that he would recommend that any hospital that uses the new test as its major source for heart attack testing should also back the test up with other measures.

“The new test may help speed up treatment for some cases that otherwise present themselves atypically, but the test can show as negative even when the patient is definitely having an acute myocardial infarction, especially if it is in an early time frame from the onset of symptoms,” Dr. Hollinger said.

“Therefore, in most patients, we would still need to proceed with additional testing and aggressive diagnosis and treatment even if the initial test is normal or negative.”

Other physicians are even more skeptical of the effectiveness of the new test. Retired vascular surgeon and current associate at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., Dr. Richard J. Bergie does not believe that the test should be trusted at all.

“When you are talking about something as potentially serious and dangerous as a heart attack, it is much more important to gather the right information rather than just going with the quickest information that becomes available,” Dr. Bergie said.

“Although the new test may in fact be much faster, my research has shown that the risk of misdiagnosis is still too great when using this test as it is currently being used at the few hospitals that have started to utilize it.”

The staff at the KU Medical Center is aware of the risks of the new test and has taken precautions to ensure that their patients receive the best possible cardiovascular care. Pifer, who is overseeing the implementation of the test at the hospital, said that her staff is still in the process of fully developing the test.

“We have been using the new test on about 20 patients a day and have been comparing the results of the new test with the results of more traditional tests,” Pifer said.

"The results have been excellent, but we know that this single test is not perfect. Hopefully one day we can have a test that stands alone, but until then clinical judgment of a patient’s history and symptoms that they are expressing are very important in assisting in a diagnosis.”

Although not everyone agrees with the level of efficiency the new test brings, patients are happy to at least see that progress is being made in the field of cardiovascular health.

Lawrence resident Ramona Davis comes from a family with a history of heart problems and lost her 26-year-old son to an unexpected heart attack two years ago. She sees the development and use of the new test as a positive sign that steps are being taken to prevent people from having to go through what she went through.

“Eventually they will work out the kinks in the test and it will be better for everyone,” Davis said.

“I just wish they would have come up with this sooner so that my son and the countless other victims of heart attacks would have had a better chance of survival.”

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Each year students apply to the School of Nursing at the University of Kansas and don’t get accepted. It’s not because they don’t work hard or have a good grade point average. It’s not because they don’t volunteer enough. It’s not even because they don’t have enough ambition. It’s because the school doesn’t have enough nursing faculty to teach the students.

“The lack of nursing faculty is a big area of shortage at the school; the average age of the nursing faculty is 50, and a lot of them are getting ready to retire,” Dr. Rita Clifford, associate dean for student affairs in the School of Nursing, said.

As the baby boomer generation grows older, there are more elderly people that need to be taken care of, which means more nurses need certification. The nursing faculty shortage affects the number of nurses because, without faculty, the nursing schools have to turn away incoming students.

“Nurses usually want to work in a job where they get paid more, and that’s usually not the case in a teaching position,” Clifford said.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), 40,000 applicants to the nursing school are turned away each year. The nursing schools cannot increase the number of nursing students because there aren’t enough appropriate clinical spots for people practicing as students.

“In the school, we need a lot of one on one time with our teachers when we’re working on our clinical rotations,” School of Nursing senior Erin Madsen said.
“There’s enough staff for our class, but there’s no way that we could have anymore people in the school without more staff.”

In the past five years, the number of applicants for the School of Nursing at KU has risen dramatically, according to Clifford. The reason for this is because the level of awareness about the profession and about the shortage has risen as well.

At the University, up to 500 people apply to the School of Nursing each year, and only 128 applicants get accepted. Although the required GPA to get into the school is only 2.5, the competition is so high that the average GPA of the students that are accepted is 3.7.

“It’s intimidating to apply to a school with such a low acceptance rate,” Sara Brandenburgh, a senior that is applying to the school, said.

This shortage affects, not only nursing students, but our healthcare, as a whole. As the number of sick people goes up, the number of nurses will stay the same, making it hard to accommodate those that need nursing care.

“All of the reports about healthcare research show that [the shortage] will continue to get worse; 1.2 million nurses will be needed by 2014,” Clifford said.

Advances in medical care are also creating situations that require a higher level of nursing care and more of it. With new technology, patients are kept alive when, under the same conditions, that wouldn’t have been possible 10-15 years ago. These patients also usually require consistent nursing care.

The low number of nurses started affecting the public schools as well. On the east and west coasts, the public schools are sharing nurses, with approximately 2,000 kids per nurse, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. In the midwest, this problem is not as severe yet. According to AACN, by the year 2015, all 50 states will experience a significant shortage.

“We could always use more nurses,” Sonja Gaumer, nurse facilitator for the Lawrence public schools, said. “It’s not always a matter of applicants with qualification, though; it’s sometimes just a matter of funds.”

According to AACN, many statewide initiatives are starting to address the shortage of nurses and nursing faculty. Some states have started encouraging current nurses to go back to school and teach future generations by providing faculty with scholarships and grants.

The KU Medical Center is starting to address the issue also. It participates in the Board of Regents programs, which give scholarships and federal grants to people that are planning on becoming nurse educators. They also have post master certificates, which allow people with either a master’s degree or a Ph.D. to take health educator courses and become stronger educators.

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Researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center are developing new anti-smoking campaigns that specifically target Native Americans.

Won Choi, associate professor of preventive medicine, is the lead researcher in the project. He believes the reason anti-smoking campaigns in the mainstream media have been ineffective for Native Americans is because the messages aren’t culturally sensitive.

“The main message in the mainstream media is to get rid of all smoking for good,” Choi said. “But some Native Americans use Marlboros for prayer ceremonies.”

Choi hopes to find out through his research if Native Americans are more prone to become habitual smokers because they smoke for ceremonial purposes.

“No one knows the answer to that. That is one of the things we want to answer through our research,” Choi said.

Choi said that some Native Americans will wake up in the morning and light a Marlboro and not smoke it, but just use the smoke to pray.

The participants in the program mainly come from the Lawrence area through the Haskell Health Center. The Haskell Health Center specializes in providing outpatient services to Native Americans with substance abuse disorders. Choi said that the sample of smokers in his study is representative of Native American smokers in the Midwest.

Choi said that 40 percent of Native Americans are habitual smokers; that is almost twice the national average. He said that Native Americans have a larger percentage of smokers than any other ethnic group.

The department of preventive medicine received a grant of $1.2 million from the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association to conduct its research. The money will be paid out over the next three years.

Choi hopes that in three years from now, he would have demonstrated that his research was successful.

Sixty-five percent of the program’s participants quit smoking after three months in the program. Forty-three percent of those who had quit smoking remained non-smokers six months later.

“We want to be able to disseminate our method to other tribes throughout the U.S. and down to other smokers,” Choi said.

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University of Kansas astronomers and engineers have worked on designing and building the first lightweight optical telescope, ULTRA, and will start testing its use and accuracy by the end of the year.

Instead of telescopes that are made of steel and glass, which would weigh approximately 1,000 pounds, ULTRA contains mirrors made of lightweight carbon fibers, the same material that Air Force jets are made of, said Stephen Shawl, professor of astronomy. The use of this new technology will make the telescope approximately 100 pounds, Shawl said. The advantages of a lighter telescope makes it easier to move around, to replicate, to build, and will hopefully make it easier for space launch.

Not only will the technology of a lightweight telescope be useful for the greater astronomy community, but also the actual telescope will be used specifically for the KU department of astronomy for personal research, since there are no usable telescopes on campus.

“This will be the first time that KU will have a research telescope of its own. We have never had the freedom to have access for personal use,” said Barbara Anthony-Twarog, professor of astronomy.

ULTRA, Ultra Lightweight Telescope for Research in Astronomy, is a project that KU astronomers Shawl, Anthony-Twarog and Bruce Twarog, the principal investigator for the project, helped propose in December 2001 to the National Science Foundation. The astronomers, alongside two KU engineers, Composite Mirror Applications, Inc. in Tucson and San Diego State University, received a grant from NSF, and a matched research allocation from KU, that equaled about $1 million to kick off the research and development of ULTRA. The telescope is still in its final stages of construction at CMA, Inc. and should be installed at Mount Laguna Observatory in San Diego by winter break. KU and San Diego State University will share access to the telescope. KU astronomers will access the telescope remotely and receive images electronically.

Bruce Twarog, the principal investigator, said that others have attempted at a lightweight telescope in the past, but have not succeeded. Other groups gave up before because the carbon fibers used to make the lightweight structure of the mirrors were “printing through” onto the actual mirror, Twarog said. Other researchers did not discover how to get rid of the fiber prints on the mirror, which was distorting the data and images. Twarog said that their group resolved this issue, though. CMA, Inc. is using a pure resin that helps reduce the fiber-appearance to almost nothing.

“When people first started thinking about this in the 60s, they were thinking about observatories in the moon. It’s got to be light and maybe even foldable for a successful launch,” Twarog said. ULTRA will cut down costs for launching into space. Twarog said that the cost of a launch is driven by weight and if you cut down the weight, you can cut down the cost.

Once CMA, Inc. correctly makes a mold for the mirrors, more mirrors can be easily reproduced from the mold. A glass mirror would take months to create, whereas the new carbon fiber mirrors would take up to a week, Shawl said.

There are two main goals the group is trying to accomplish at this moment, Anthony-Twarog said. The first is to set up the telescope in the observatory and test it. The second is to demonstrate that this telescope performs as well as any other telescope.

“We need to be sure it’s accurate and functioning, and the optics themselves are properly aligned. We will test on certain stars, the quality of images, and if the camera system obtains images correctly,” Shawl said.

After testing is done, the telescope system will work automatically. KU astronomers will be able to remotely operate the telescope and collect data and images here in Kansas, Shawl said.

“Ideally, the telescope would work robotically. Once the sun goes down, the dome will open, and the telescope will proceed to observe automatically,” Shawl said.

Anthony-Twarog said the group is looking forward. The success of this telescope will be great for the KU astronomy community and program because KU will have access to a telescope for the first time, as well as for the national astronomy community, because a lighter telescope could change the way that telescopes are used, she said.

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University of Kansas childcare centers are exercising the guidelines of a new study about children and playtime.

The American Academy of Pediatrics study says that children benefit both physically and mentally from free playtime.

“Children benefit from the notion that they are using their own structure on the world rather than the world imposing its structure on them,” Michael C. Roberts, professor and director of the clinical child psychology program at the University of Kansas said.

The study defines free playtime as spontaneous time spent outside and inside without set rules or direction. The study includes play that involves “true toys” like building blocks and baby dolls.

Playing without restraints helps children acquire problem-solving skills, adapt to social environments, control their muscles and use their imaginations, the study says.

“Free time is where you get kids truly playing. You can watch a kid pick up a stick and start singing into it, or pretend it’s a fishing rod,” Roberts said. “They are putting their own structure on the environment and get a chance to work out their feelings, difficulties and creativity.”

This study comes as a surprise to those who want to keep their children active.

The study counters the idea that educational toys and extracurricular involvement are the only ways to help children grow mentally.

“We have scheduled kids so much. After school activities leave free time pretty tight. Where is the chance for you to become bored and do something different that someone hasn’t imposed on you to do?” Roberts said.

Hilltop Child Development Center director Pat Pisani said that most parents liked to keep their children busy with activities outside of school.

“Many of the older children take part in soccer, basketball and swimming. Lots of others are enrolled in ballet, gymnastics and tumbling,” Pisani said.

The center, located at 1605 Irving Hill Dr., caters to University families, with students’ children given first priority for enrollment, then staff and faculty children.

The study says a lack of free playtime contributes to increased risks of obesity and depression in children.

Hilltop follows meal requirements established by the Child and Adult Care Food Program. Children have light breakfasts of cereal or bread product with fruit or juice. Lunch includes protein foods, bread, vegetables, fruit and milk.

Pisani has always emphasized the structure of Hilltop’s learning experience as a healthy balance of playtime, creativity and teacher-led instruction.

“The kids use a wide variety of learning materials all day long. We also include field trips and walks,” she said. “Each classroom has areas for art, science, dramatic play, books, music and sensory play.”

Electronic influences like interactive television and computer games interfere with unstructured playtime, the study says.

Though Hilltop children have access to computers and educational software, they also go outside for 45 minutes in the morning and afternoon.

They have playground options such as climbers, playhouses, sandboxes, and monkey bars. The center also has mock store and gas station buildings to encourage role-playing.

“We have the largest and probably the best equipped playgrounds in this area,” Pisani said.

Hilltop rarely uses videos as part of playtime. Pisani said they are only used to go along with lessons. The only exception is when the children watch a G-rated movie for special events like pajama days or end of the semester parties once or twice a year.

“There are some benefits of videos and TV, but it should be done in balance. They should never replace free play, which actively engages children,” Roberts said.

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Medical professionals and patients discovered that Exubera, an inhaled insulin treatment for Type II diabetes patients, may be a disappointment for those hoping to get rid of their daily injections. Launched by Pfizer in July, Exubera marketed itself as “an oral diabetes agent” for patients who are “delaying further treatment…for fear of injections.” Although the drug reduces the amount of daily injections, it does not eliminate shots altogether.

According to diabeticsincontrol.com, a Web site that provides current information about the disease for medical professionals, sales for the drug were expected to reach 1.5 billion within a year of its release. Based on current sales, the drug will most likely stabilize at 207 million by the year 2015.

“Exubera is designed for such a niche market,” said Heather Norton, a certified diabetes educator and pharmacist at CVS Pharmacy. “It has a lot of limitations.”

Patients who use the drug cannot smoke due to the risks of insulin reactions, resulting in extremely low blood sugar or hypoglycemia. Also, a patient who smokes is unable to absorb the insulin into their bodies, making the drug useless to them.

“Someone interested in Exubera must quit smoking a full six months before using the drug,” said Ruth Mencl, a registered nurse and manager of the diabetes center at Saint Luke’s Hospital. “Many patients don’t want to tell you that they’ve smoked. We might need to start having them sign a release.”

Diabetes sufferers with pneumonia, lung disease or bronchitis also cannot use Exubera because their lungs are not able to process it.

Other diabetes patients, such as LaVone Daily who has suffered from the disease for ten years, may not find the drug beneficial.

“At this time, I wouldn’t use the drug because I’m used to the needles,” Daily said. “With Exubera, I would still have to inject anyway. It would be a good drug for someone who was afraid to inject.”

Although researchers are working hard to make the inhaler more compact, patients are often turned off by the size of the device. Measuring approximately six inches by seven inches, the device can cause a lot of inconvenience compared to injectable insulin, which takes up very little space. Leland Graves III, a doctor at the University Of Kansas School Of Medicine agrees.

“I don’t have anyone on it,” Graves said. “A patient wants to be as discrete as possible. That is not possible with the drug’s current form.”

Exubera also demands extra work for the patient. The device requires cleanings once a week and part replacements every two weeks.

“If it’s not taken care of, it could have a malfunction,” Mencl said. “When someone comes into the hospital with the device, we always replace it to insure it works properly.”

Although Exubera was proven safe in clinical trials, the drug is too new to show any long term side effects. So far, doctors are cautious to prescribe the drug due to these unknown side effects. Tonya Salyer, a certified diabetes educator, agrees.

“So far, the drug is just not working out,” Salyer said. “The drug has the tendency to cause lung damage among other things.”

Possible side effects include a cough or throat irritation. More severe side effects consist of a possibility of long term lung damage and severe hypoglycemia resulting from inhaling the insulin too soon.

If a meal isn’t consumed within 15 minutes after taking Exubera, the patient’s system won’t contain enough glucose for their cells to absorb, causing them to pull in too much glucose, giving the patient hypoglycemia. This reaction is worse with inhaled insulin then the traditional injectable.

Many health care professionals are concerned about the exact dosage of Exubera that patients will need. Since Exubera is an inhaled substance and not an injectable one, there is worry that the dosage is inexact.

“Some doctors jump on every bandwagon before they know all the effects,” Mencl said. “This is a concern because injectables are measured in units while Exubera is measured in milligrams.”

Another draw back for patients looking to take Exubera is the cost. Currently, inhaled insulin isn’t covered by insurance. At an average price of $175 for a combination pack of 15, deciding to choose an inhaled version instead of the syringe could add up. Exubera is about twice as much as a syringe and vile.

“It could take several months to get it on insurance,” Mencl said. “Medicaid is covering the pens and the injectable insulin, so it’s only a matter of time before Exubera is covered as well.”

Although Exubera replaces the majority of a patient’s daily injections, it does not replace what doctors call the “baseline,” such as Lantis. This shot, usually given at night, gives the patient a spike of insulin to help glucose move to the patients’ cells so that they can have energy for their bodies to function.

The other injections for the day, known as Intermediate Acting Insulin, aid that initial baseline injection. These injections are often needed to help regulate elevated blood sugar after a meal. Exubera replaces these injections before or after meals, allowing the patient to inject only once a day.

“We still don’t know if it’s as effective as the injectable insulin because it’s so new,” Mencl said. “It needs to be used with a lot of patients before we can determine this.”

Despite the downsides of Exubera, Richard Hellman, a doctor from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is optimistic that Exubera is a great starting point in creating the best care for diabetes patients.

“Eventually we could figure out how to make the devices smaller and easier to handle,” Hellman said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s the first step to creating a better quality of life for our patients.”

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Sometimes coffee just isn’t enough. That’s what University of Kansas students are finding as the demands placed on them increase. During test time and cram sessions KU students have turned to the prescription drug adderall as a means for getting their work done.

Adderall is a prescription stimulant amphetamine drug that is most often used to treat attention-deficit disorder. It has also been used to treat severe cases of depression, narcolepsy, and other disorders. Many KU students have turned to this stimulant in order to study for classes, but many don’t understand the negative effects it might have.

Some side effects include increased heart rate, insomnia, headache, sweating, tremors and in worst case scenarios, high blood pressure, tics, cardiomyopathy, and even hallucinations.

“It [adderall] could cause everything from paranoia, delusional thinking, auditory hallucinations, liver damage, kidney damage,” said Linda L. Keeler, M.D., a psychiatrist at the university’s Counseling And Psychological Services facilities. She added that side effects are based on the frequency and amount of the dose and whether it is being used with other substances.

“I’d say there’s a lot more negative side effects,” said Ally porter, Colorado junior, “Like it gives me headaches, it makes me not hungry, nothing sounds good, it gives me dry mouth.”

Porter, who was prescribed adderall about a year ago, said she only takes it when she knows she has a lot of work to do for school. She is supposed to take 45 milligrams a day, but only takes 15 milligrams about once or twice a week.

According to www.healthsquare.com the average prescribed starting dosage is usually about ten milligrams a day. The Web site also said that it is very rare that someone would have to take 40 milligrams a day or more.

With Porter taking such a high dose of adderall, the uncomfortable side effects are the least of her worries. She said many of her friends ask her for pills around test time, because they know she’s prescribed the medication.

“When they ask me for it, it’s kind of annoying because they just expect that they can have it because we’re friends,” said Porter.

Dr. Keeler doesn’t discourage the use of adderall for those who need it, but does have a problem with the casualness of people giving away prescribed medication.

“Somebody that would do that in the first place is comprising their friend,” said Keeler. “I think number one that it is illegal to use someone else’s medication and it’s a serious situation for them to get themselves into.”

Even though Keeler said there are extensive tests for those who are prescribed the medication, many of those prescribed don’t realize the seriousness of giving or selling other people their medication.

Another student, a female, who wished to go unnamed, said she took the drug on a regular basis in high school and found it to be very accessible.

“I got it from kids at school who were prescribed it,” she said. “It was pretty casual. I don’t know if it was cheaper then or not as many people were doing it, but I’d pay like one dollar for it or I’d get it for free. A lot of times people would come up to me and ask me if I wanted some.”

She said that she took it for a while on a daily basis and varied her dosage anywhere from 10 milligrams to taking 100 milligrams at one point. She said the side effects were horrible and sometimes scary.

“Well you’re not hungry at all, food makes you sick, you clinch your jaw and chatter your teeth. You can’t sleep,” she said.

When she took 100 milligrams she had hot sweats and felt like she was going to vomit all day. She said she finally stopped it because she started feeling really sick all of the time.

“At the end I started feeling like crap,”she said. “It just wasn’t fun anymore.”
Still people like Ally Porter and the other student continue to see many college students resort to taking adderall without thinking of the consequences.

Students are paying anywhere from $2 to$10 per pill and pulling all nighters. Porter said someone once offered her $20 for a pill out of desperation.

The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that 5.9 percent abuse rates among more competitive schools and 1.3 percent abuse rate among less competitive campuses.

“I’ve been in your shoes. It’s a bad idea,” the anonymous student said. “It’s gonna tear apart your body and your brain apart.”

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Wal-Mart’s back in the news, and it’s not because it’s opening another store in Lawrence. Wal-Mart has made national headlines recently because of its new initiative to lower the cost of many prescription drugs to just $4 per prescription. Undoubtedly, this new initiative has had great success, but has gained much criticism as well.

Local pharmacists have been quick to say that Wal-Mart's new initiative is not helping the customer. Some say it is a large media stunt to help boost their own sales.

“Wal-Mart has great marketing. This plan was rolled out and it seemed really great to the people that may not have been in the industry,” said Jeff Sigler, pharmacist and owner of Sigler Pharmacy, 4525 W.6 St. He referred to the media strategists for Wal-Mart that are unaware of how the actual pharmacy market is being run.

Sigler’s student intern, Marc Wilson, said that the new Wal-Mart initiative really doesn’t save the customer any significant amount of money. “As far as bringing true savings to consumers, you’re talking cents,” Wilson said.

Sigler did show regret in some of the decisions that he made in light of the Wal-Mart’s Plan. “The only thing that I am disappointed in is that I wish I would have come up with that idea in the first place because we’ve already been (lowering generic drug costs) for the past year,” Sigler said.

He said that Wal-Mart’s new campaign is so effective because of the mass audiences that it reaches. Starting in September, Wal-Mart’s new program was introduced in the state of Florida, where it quickly gained popularity and started its expansion. A little more than a month later on Oct. 20, a Wal-Mart news release showed plans to unveil this program in 14 more states, including Kansas. Six days later it was in full effect in Kansas.

“We started rolling (prescriptions) on Oct. 26 in Kansas,” said Kory Lundberg, media spokesperson for Wal-Mart. “It’s been very well received by our customers. In the four days after we extended the program on Oct. 19 into 14 states, we have sold more than 152,000 new prescriptions in those 14 states.”

Lundberg gave reasoning to Wal-Mart’s new pricing plan. “A lot of the patients seem to be happy with the effort that Wal-Mart has put forth to take some of the cost out of the health care system,” Lundberg said.

Wal-Mart has expanded the list of generic drugs on the plan from 291 to 314 since its start. With such large growth in a short amount of time, smaller pharmacies should be feeling the effects of Wal-Mart’s generic drug program, as is apparent by some of the complaints that Wal-Mart’s media office has fielded.

“We certainly receive a lot of calls (about competition), we can’t speculate on how competitors are doing. Many competitors have responded by matching our prices, and that is certainly welcome because it helps in bringing affordable prescriptions to customers,” Lundberg said.

Some online news sources have said that Wal-Mart’s new plan is completely unfair, and that it is driving the smaller competition to close. “They are closing down lots of pharmacies and lots of stores all over the United States because of their unfair practices,” one Wisconsin pharmacy spokesperson told a local TV affiliate. This is hardly the case.

Since the new plan has been unveiled here in Kansas, Tom Wilcox, pharmacist and owner of Round Corner Drug Store, 801 Massachusetts St., hasn’t seen a single change in his business since the lowered drug prices. “I haven’t had one concern about it, or talk about it with my customers,” Wilcox said.

He explained that what Wal-Mart is doing is not that outstanding because its low prescription costs only account for a miniscule amount for the actual drugs that are on the market. “This whole Wal-Mart thing is only like 1 percent of all the drugs on the market place, it is not a large percentage,” Wilcox said. “It’s popular because people see the low dollar amount and think ‘Well, you know, I’m only going to be paying $4 for a prescription so I might as well go there,’ but then they go over there and (the price) is just for one type of drug and not another.”

Price difference between pharmacies' generic drug prescriptions is not that substantial. “We have not seen it affect us at all. Our generic prices are pretty darn competitive anyway,” Sigler said.

He brought up another valuable point that many of the generic drugs that Wal-Mart has priced at $4 were almost that cheap before. “As I went down that list and looked at the differences of what our normal price was and what their $4 price was, in many cases it was maybe a dollar, or a dollar and half difference. This really isn’t a big issue for any of our customers,” Sigler said.

Wilcox said that smaller pharmacies are still in business for a reason. “If we weren’t competitive, we wouldn’t be here,” Wilcox said. He has owned the Round Corner Drug Store for almost 20 years now.

The aspect that keeps smaller pharmacies competitive is their closeness with the customer. “We’re here for a reason. The reason we are here is because we take care of our customers. We have home delivery, and we do direct account. We’re making ourselves available to our customers,” Wilcox said. This is something that Wal-Mart cannot provide, and other local pharmacies have seen this inadequacy within larger, chain pharmacies.

“(Our customers) would rather go with a company that has a pharmacist that can maybe spend a few minutes with them, and they don’t have to wait in line, they don’t have to walk a long way to get the counter,” Sigler said.

Smaller pharmacies tend to have better customer-pharmacist relationships, drawing a very strong clientele. “I feel like I know most of my customers by their first name, and I know a lot of what my customers are taking,” Sigler said. “With a small, independent pharmacy, I think you have more of a partner in your health care. You’re not just a supplier. We are concerned about their health care and the effectiveness of their medication.”

Sigler Pharmacy hasn’t seen a single fluctuation in the amount of business that it does except for the couple of customers changed to their pharmacy from another competitor.

“I haven’t lost any customers, actually I have gained two customers from Wal-Mart this week alone,” Sigler said. “They might not have been happy with how long the lines are at Wal-Mart now.”

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Headache, fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches are common symptoms between the months of October and April. This is especially true for students living in community housing. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, between five to 20 percent of the population in the United States is infected by the flu, also know as influenza, during these months each year.

Johnson County Clin-Trials, JCCT, is a clinical research facility in Lenexa. The company’s latest medical research study includes evaluating an investigational influenza vaccine. Although the vaccine, marketed in Canada since 1993, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it is still required by the FDA to run a two-year study in the United States.

“The study is required not to show that the vaccine works but showing that its side effect profile is no different from other drugs,” said Dr. Casey Johnson, co-founder and president of Johnson County Clin-Trials.

The phase or stage three study, now in its second year, includes more than 3,000 study participants nationwide; JCCT is granted ten percent of that population. While phase one and phase two studies test at single medical sites, phase three studies require volumes of participants spread throughout the country to show that there is nothing wrong with the drug, Johnson said.

The influenza vaccine study at JCCT includes 350 qualified study participants between the ages of 18 and 50 years old who are reimbursed for time and travel. Responses to advertisements help choose study participants.

“Honestly, the money aspect interested me in the study,” Kailey Mesler, Lawrence junior and influenza vaccine study participant, said. “It’s easy to do and you make between $350 to $400.”

Including Johnson, seven full-time staff members and 15 part-time individuals work on the study at JCCT. During the study, participants receive either the actual influenza vaccine or a saline solution called a placebo. The vaccines and placebos are equally and randomly divided among the participants according to protocol, the predetermined rules governing a study; 50 percent of the participants receive the influenza vaccine and 50 percent receive the placebo. What injection is given remains unknown to the participants and the staff, a requirement by the FDA.

“If no one knows whether or not they received the drug, they can not be influenced by the drug for negative reasons,” Johnson said. “It’s a way to keep all statistics unbiased.”

After receiving either the vaccine or the placebo, JCCT continues to keep track of the participants for the first three days by a diary phone system. On day 21, the participants come back for a repeat blood draw and replicate the same process at the six-month mark.

“Follow-up blood draws are required to see if the patients have built up the anti-body desired,” Johnson said.

Mindy Marker, Lenexa junior and influenza study participant, mentioned JCCT’s work ethic.

“I did not find any flaws in the study but I was more worried about making sure the study was safe,” Marker said. “Once I saw that the FDA had already approved the vaccine I no longer had any worries.”

In the past, Johnson participated in several influenza studies. This influenza study is different because this particular drug has already received FDA approval since there is so much background information on this drug from its market in Canada, Johnson said.

“Typically most drugs will see FDA approval in three to four years,” Johnson said.

What Johnson and other study investigators hope to see through this study is adequate anti-body build up, not wanting to see abnormal or adverse side effects including pain or redness in the arm or arm pain or numbness lasting longer than a day after the injection.

“You basically want to see nothing at all except a normal lifestyle,” Johnson said.

Although no confirmed cases of the flu have occurred this year at the University of Kansas, workers at Watkins Memorial Health Center expect most of their cases to be seen between now and February.

“There were 24 confirmed cases last year, keeping in mind not everyone that came in was tested,” said Kathy Thrasher, head pharmacist at Watkins.

Watkins advises students to take measures to avoid the spread of influenza and other viruses.

“Students should practice good hygiene by covering their cough, not sharing drinks and washing hands with soap,” Thrasher said.

If the influenza drug proves to be effective after the study’s completion in April, manufacturers could see the drug on the market next fall in doctors’ offices and other available locations.

Posted by Meghan Murphy at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was a sweltering day in July, and Jeff Lang, professor of mathematics, was surrounded by 2.5 million other bodies. A heat wave had come over the country, making for uncomfortable sweating and a pessimistic attitude toward the setting. But it didn’t matter. Lang was in Mecca.

Lang, who was Roman Catholic until age 16 and then an atheist for 12 years, converted to Islam in 1982. He made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991 after taking a year off from teaching at the University of Kansas. He was teaching at a Saudi university and decided to go on pilgrimage, which is required of all Muslims if they can afford it, while he was in the country.

Lang recalls the exhaustion of living in Saudi Arabia for a year, but really focuses on the frustrations of dealing with the mosque as an American convert.

“When you’re a convert,” he said, “you really are sitting in both worlds at the same time. You do feel like you’re caught in a cultural war.

“Living in Saudi Arabia, it’s like living in the mosque 24 hours a day,” he said.

Lang has written three books on his experiences as an American convert. His books concentrate on the American Muslim mosque subculture and the role of women in Middle Eastern cultures. In his books, he is “quite critical” of the mosque society in America.

In his book, “Losing My Religion: A Call For Help,” Lang looks at Muslims across the world, foreign born, North American born and North American converted, and analyzes the cultural influences that have taken over Islam. He finds these cultural barriers to be the reason for absence of young Muslims and converts in American mosques.

Besides writing, Lang has lectured on the topic at colleges and Islamic conventions around the nation.

“When we bring people into our community, don’t expect them to become Middle Easterners or Arabs or Pakistanis or Sri Lankans the next day. Or ever even. Give them time to grow into the religion,” he said at the beginning of one lecture.

“If they have this or that problem, if their behavior is not perfect from our particular perspective, it’s better that they come to hear the message. It’s better that they work out for themselves what it is to be a Muslim in America,” he said about young Muslims.

Lang goes on to say that if the Prophet Muhammad and his companions adopted the approach of American mosques, there would be no Muslims today.

Lang married a Saudi woman, Raiga Qandeel, in 1984. He has three daughters: Jameelah, Sarah and Fattin. Because of the women in his life and the mixing of cultures in his children, Lang has tried to help his children distinguish between Islam and the culturally based interpretations of the religion.

“Much of what they picked up and what they love and admire about their mother’s culture, they see as culture,” Lang said.

At the Islamic Center of Lawrence, 1917 Naismith Dr., men worship downstairs and women worship upstairs. Both Lang and Raiga view this as a cultural problem because the Quran, the Muslim holy book, does not say men and women must worship separately. It is this separation that Lang and his wife criticize as a cultural interpretation of Islam.

“In the mosque in Saudi Arabia, you don’t have to go upstairs—you pray behind the men!” Raiga said. “I don’t have to feel the need to have to do a separate thing. There isn’t all this complication.”

Beverly Mack, professor of African and African-American studies, traces prayer traditions back to the 10th century.

“Women would pray next to the men and they would listen to the sermons together,” she said.

Mack notes some benefits in the separation of prayer in today’s mosques.

“You have more privacy. You have freedom to let your children run around if you’ve got kids with you—you can just be without distraction, and that’s the whole idea,” she said.

Raiga, who has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of San Francisco and is from the city in Saudi Arabia, used to be active in the mosque. She sees gender separation in prayer as a cultural difference that causes more harm than good.

“When I went to the mosque here it was ‘Raiga, go upstairs. Jeffrey, go here,’ and my kids were little. ‘I want to go to daddy,’ so I’d come down the stairs. ‘Jeffrey!’ from outside the door, ‘please take your daughter,’ and then I go back up, and then Jeffrey goes up again because she wants to be with mommy. ‘Raiga!’ come take the kids.

“You have the ones from the conservative villages and they come here and they impose their conservative culture on the mosque,” she said. “And it hurts the religion so much.”

Raiga attributes the mosque community’s “closed-mindedness” to different home environments. Most students and people who attend the center are not from the cities in the Middle East where wealth and education flourish, but instead are from rural areas.

“We have a good Muslim community, but we need a more open-minded Muslim community,” she said.

Raiga left the mosque in 1991 and didn’t go back for 10 years. She saw no changes in the way it was run.

“It’s still where I left it 10 years ago with no improvements,” she says.

Each semester, Lang brings home a list of his students and asks Raiga, “Does this look like an Arab name? Does this look like an Arab name? I never see her in the mosque. I never see him in the mosque.”

“Instead of adopting the kids and bringing them in, we are scattering them and scaring them off!” she said.

This Ramadan, the holy month of fasting that started Sept. 24 and ended Oct. 23, the Langs welcomed the Muslim youth to their home so that the kids could have a more open environment to assemble in.

“This is the community here, and my house is never empty. I love having them around because they make the community for my kids,” Raiga said.

In the campus community, Lang has served on and off in the past few years as the faculty adviser for the KU Muslim Student Association.

When he is not teaching or with his family, he finds time to talk about the spiritual and cultural aspects of religion in a more relaxed setting with his friend of eight years, Bangere Purnaprajna, associate professor of mathematics.

“He’s very deeply spiritual and has a very deep understanding and interpretation of the Quran,” Purnaprajna said.

Purnaprajna, who does not practice a religion, enjoys talking about the spiritual aspects of religions with Lang and agrees with Lang’s views on the American mosque subculture.

“Interpretations of religion are different with Muslims from Egypt compared to Muslims from India. Islam doesn’t say to do these things. It’s always the culture,” he said.

Purnaprajna respects the views of Lang and what he does for the Muslim community. He says “he is an inspiration” to him and it is hard not be attracted to his way of thinking.

“He knows who he is. He knows what he wants. He is a very clear thinking person. That is the great mark of Jeff Lang.”

Lang is currently working on his fourth book and will teach math 105 and 699 next spring.

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