unc.edu/news

National Coverage

Twists in Chain of Supplies for Blood Drug
The New York Times
With reports of more than 400 patients in the United States suffering serious complications after receiving the blood-thinner heparin, American investigators are trying to determine whether the raw material for the drug, made from pig intestines, became contaminated on the journey that begins in the slaughterhouses of China. ...“If you don’t control the incoming source, it’s very hard to get rid of the contaminants,” says Liu Jian, a heparin expert at the University of North Carolina.

Regional Coverage

JSU chosen to direct natural disaster center
The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.)
Jackson State University is now a Center of Excellence for Natural Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and Emergency Management. Selected by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the center will receive $3.5 million per year for six years of which JSU will get $1 million annually. It will partner with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the area of natural disasters, coastal infrastructure and emergency management.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/science-and-technology/homeland-security-funds
-unc-center-to-study-natural-disasters-in-coastal-areas.html

State and Local Coverage

UNC-CH designated (Under the Dome)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
UNC-Chapel Hill has just been named a "Center of Excellence" by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The school will co-lead a program with Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., to study emergency preparedness.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/science-and-technology/homeland-security-funds-
unc-center-to-study-natural-disasters-in-coastal-areas.html

Mini-Medical School slated
The Chapel Hill Herald
Ever wanted to learn how to perform a tracheotomy? Wish you could remove a bone spur? The latest installment of the UNC School of Medicine's annual Mini-Medical School will not equip participants with that level of skill and knowledge. The three-part weekly series is designed to give lay audiences first-hand experience with the science underlying the practice of modern medicine.
UNC Event Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/back-by-popular-demand-
2008-unc-mini-medical-school.html

E.L. Doctorow to visit UNC
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Award-winning novelist E.L. Doctorow will give a free public lecture at 6:30 p.m. March 27 on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Doctorow's most recent novel, "The March," had its genesis in the history "The March to the Sea and Beyond" by Joseph Glatthaar, a UNC-CH historian.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-928565.cfm
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/humanities-and-social-sciences/novelist-e.l.
-doctorow-to-speak-at-unc.html

Council revisits assumptions on high density projects
The Chapel Hill Herald
Last fall, Mayor Kevin Foy requested the Town Council create a strategic plan for how it wants the town to grow. ...Facilitators from the UNC Chapel Hill School of Government guided council members through something of an assumption brainstorming. "This is the building block on which the entire strategic plan gets built," said facilitator Margaret Henderson.

Former foster kids losing N.C. benefits
The Citizen-Times (Asheville)
Manuel Bates wasn’t fortunate enough to be in foster care the day he turned 18. Each year, more than 20,000 teens who turn 18 while in foster care in the United States can opt to remain in state custody and receive benefits such as tuition waivers, housing and training in life skills to help them succeed. ...States developed their programs assuming youths who were staying with their families on their 18th birthdays would fare well, said Nancy Dickinson, director of the Jordan Institute for Families at UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work.

Beef recall proves system is broken (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
How does bad beef land on your child's school lunch tray? It's not hard to understand when you examine our broken federal food safety system. The latest case example: 143 million pounds of beef were recalled this month by the federal government in the largest beef recall in U.S. history. (Suzanne Havala Hobbs is a registered dietitian and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill.)

Out of touch on Down syndrome (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A recent news story quoted a UNC-Chapel Hill professor's lecture notes as saying "In my opinion, the moral thing for older women to do is to have amniocentesis, as soon during pregnancy as is safe for the fetus, test whether placental cells have a third chromosome #21, and abort the fetus if it does."
Related Link:
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/opinion/story/12945.html

Issues and Trends

Now, a question for Friday, Spangler, Bowles
The Charlotte Observer
There's no mistaking what Dick Spangler thinks about the University of North Carolina at Charlotte kicking off a football program. "I fear that football will damage the university's academic position," Spangler, the UNC system's president from 1986-97, told those gathered at a faculty meeting last week.