uncnews.unc.edu

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

National Coverage

Living for Candy, and Sugar-Coated Goblins
The New York Times
Halloween always brings bogeymen to terrify children, but this year the bookstore holds its own terrors for parents. “I Shudder,” ($23.95, HarperCollins), the new book by the playwright and humorist Paul Rudnick, reveals a horrible truth no parent wants published: It is possible, it seems, to live on candy. ...And for those who still think he should be dead from malnourishment, Suzanne Havala Hobbs, a registered dietician and a clinical associate professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, offered a different view. “Some people defy all odds,” she said.

Hefty Side Effect For Kids On Antipsychotics
Forbes
A new study is likely to add to the furious debate over the rapid rise in the prescription of heavy-duty antipsychotic drugs to children. ...University of North Carolina psychiatrist Linmarie Sikich led a government study last year that showed that Risperdal or Zyprexa were no better than older medicines for schizophrenic kids. But, she says, "There is still a lot of pressure to prescribe these newer medications--it is what people know about and what is advertised on television."
Related Link:
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/10/27/psychiatric-meds-
can-bring-on-rapid-weight-gain-in-kids.html

Let the Hearings Begin (Blog)
The Washington Post
The Congressional hearings on NFL brain injuries that begin today should be fascinating, gruesome, and possibly momentous. ...From 1966 through 2008, the annual average dropped to 9.4 direct deaths and rose slightly to 9.2 indirect ones. (These data are collected each year by the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.)

MBA Dropouts: Business School, Interrupted
BusinessWeek
Sometimes destiny gets in the way of business school. You land upon a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity, you get pregnant, the military calls your number, someone in your family falls ill. ...Candidates are more likely never to join the MBA program than to drop out, says Michael Stepanek, MBA program director at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, where 11 students have left the program in the last five academic years, including those who became ineligible because of poor grades.

Regional Coverage

Sugary drink tax overdue to help fund health care (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Statesman Journal (Salem, Ore.)
Better get a straw because it's becoming harder and harder to swallow claims being made by a group known as Americans Against Food Taxes. ...Dr. Barry Popkin, a researcher and professor at the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, co-authored a 2004 study analyzing food patterns from the U.S. Department of Agriculture food consumption tables. He and his colleagues found that high-fructose corn syrup consumption increased 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, and that high-fructose corn syrup now represents 40 percent of the caloric sweetener added to foods and beverages.

Football should be made safer (Editorial)
The San Bernardino County Sun (California)
Every parent of a child who plays tackle football should look carefully at new research on the effects of repeated head injuries in games and at practice. ...That was followed by an eye-opening Oct. 10 New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell that highlights a University of North Carolina program measuring the force and location of every blow every UNC player receives to the head during practices.

State and Local Coverage

Study: How far are you from a burn center?
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
Burn injuries cause more than 40,000 hospitalizations a year in the U.S., but only 22 percent of patients are admitted to American Burn Association-verified burn centers for treatment. ...Researchers looked at how many people could reach the 51 verified burn care centers in the U.S. by ambulance or helicopter in one or two hours. The list includes The North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center at UNC Hospitals and Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.

Prognosis good for local health care program
The Chapel Hill News
...But how important is the focus on care vs. insurance? "[The Health Service] is certainly one of the local innovations that improves the status quo," said Daniel Gitterman, associate professor of public policy at UNC, "but it is not a long term solution." In Gitterman's view the need for broad access to affordable insurance, not just care, cannot be ignored. "A lot of patients are just one sickness or one injury away from great hardship," he said. Even with the Small Business Health Service, uninsured patients who get a major illness or injury could face large costs, he said, especially if they need to be hospitalized.

How Many Doctors Do We Need?
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
An article written in the Journal of the American Medical Association highlights the contributions of physicians to the economy and to social needs. The article was written by Thomas Ricketts, the associate director of the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC, who says Americans need to take a closer look at this issue in wake of the ongoing healthcare debates.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3023/71/

Thorp Fields UNC Student Questions
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
In his Q&A session with students Tuesday, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp was crystal clear that merit-based aid would be kept safe, even in tough economic times. For most other areas, however, Thorp emphasized that changes needed to be made, and they might not be painless. One of the major topics the chancellor addressed was a tuition increase, with the same percentage added for in-state and out-of-state students.

UNC wants more sustainability courses
The Chapel Hill Herald
Last spring, a team of students at UNC found more than 150 courses related to sustainability. On Tuesday, Chancellor Holden Thorp said he would like to see more such courses on campus to prepare students for the abundant opportunities efforts in sustainability will eventually bring.

Insurance group gives funds to UNC
The Chapel Hill Herald
The Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina has given a $30,000 contribution to its existing endowed scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This gift fulfills the association's commitment to donate $100,000 in scholarship funds to the school. The merit-based scholarship will help support the academic pursuits of deserving students in the Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Poverty is bad; helping is hard
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
No lawmaker opposes the goal of reducing poverty, but a state legislative commission Tuesday was far from unified about how to do it. The group listened as leaders from UNC-Chapel Hill's Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity and the N.C. Justice Center, which advocates on behalf of low-income families, outlined four proposals the commission will consider turning into bills...Gene Nichol, who heads the poverty center, emphasized that 15 percent of North Carolina households and nearly 20 percent of children in the state live below the poverty level.

‘Play hard,’ raise funds at Eve Ball Friday night
The Chapel Hill Herald
Eve Carson’s Carolina Way begins with the words, “Study hard and work hard. Play hard.” Carson, 22, was UNC’s enthusiastic, thoughtful, yet playful student body president who was known for her late-night dance parties. On Friday night at the Eve Ball, there’s likely to be a lot of people playing hard, dancing, jumping, laughing and showing off their costumes as they support the Eve Marie Carson Scholarship Fund.

Event raises $2.3M for cancer care
The Charlotte Observer
If you were out last weekend, you probably saw them - more than 1,100 people in a sea of hot pink walking, running, jogging through the streets of Charlotte to raise money for the accessible treatment and cure of breast cancer. ...UNC Chapel Hill: Awarded $300,000 for a research project that will help doctors understand who is at the highest risk for breast cancer recurrence.

Heels4Hope to hold first race
The Chapel Hill Herald
Heels4Hope will hold its first race on Halloween at 10 a.m. on the UNC campus. The 5K Challenge starts at the Bell Tower, and post-race festivities will be at Granville Towers (125 W. Franklin St.). Heels4Hope, established in February as a nonprofit, also announces its major sponsors and beneficiaries and invites people to register for the race at its Web site www.heels4hope.com. The charities to receive the proceeds from the race include the Arc of Orange County, the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and Push America.

What's UNC doing to curb booze abuse? (Letter to the Editor)
The Chapel Hill Herald
Much is written about abusive student drinking, declaring this a community problem. The drinking problem among many UNC students is serious -- seems many come to Chapel Hill just to have a place to drink too much. (David R. Lee, Chapel Hill)

Issues and Trends

A merry band of runners
The Chapel Hill News
Obviously, speed has a lot to do with running a successful race. Grit, determination and stamina are all good, but first and foremost -- speed. ...(Joan) Nesbit Mabe's mark remains indelibly inscribed upon the forest trails north of Chapel Hill's Horace Williams Airport, however. "I'm proud of the fact that the trail has now been officially labeled the Pumpkin Trail by Carolina North Forest Management," she said.