Kirsten Carlson, associate professor of law and adjunct associate professor of political science, wrote an article for The Conversation about the 2020 Census and the challenge of counting Native Americans living on reservations and in traditional villages, the most undercounted people in the 2010 U.S. Census. The Census Bureau estimates that it undercounted American Indians living on reservations and Alaska Natives in villages by approximately 4.9% in 2010. “This year, tribal leaders throughout the U.S. are urging American Indians and Alaska Natives to be seen and counted in the 2020 U.S. Census,” Carlson wrote. “Native leaders across the U.S. have been working to educate Native people about the importance of being counted in the 2020 U.S. Census. The National Congress of the American Indian, the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization, has undertaken a public education campaign and designed a toolkit to help tribes and native people participate in the Census. Tribes have devoted considerable energy and resources to preventing another undercount. Beginning in 2015, they have consulted with the Census Bureau on how to build collaborative relationships to overcome the barriers to counting people in Indian Country. Tribal leaders are using their expertise in reaching their own communities by developing outreach plans to encourage tribal participation and hiring tribal citizens to collect Census data. For tribes, an accurate count will enhance their ability to exercise sovereignty over their lands and people.

Matthew Seeger, professor of communication and dean, College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, wrote an article for The Conversation discussing key principles that officials should use in coronavirus. “Infectious disease outbreaks have killed more people than hurricanes, wildfires or earthquakes. The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history, with death estimates ranging as high as 50 million worldwide. Almost 700,000 deaths occurred in the U.S.; in some cases, entire families died. Because these events are so outside our understanding of what is normal, they create high levels of uncertainty. We don’t know what is happening. And we don’t know what to do to avoid and mitigate the harm. Crises are also time-sensitive events that require quick decisions and actions to reduce and contain the harm. Delayed evacuations for hurricanes, for example, can lead to more deaths. Failure to issue advisories to boil water can result in disease outbreaks. Telling people what to do during a crisis - boil water, evacuate, shelter in place - is critical to limiting and containing the harm.”

Who is incarcerated in Michigan’s county jails, their length of sentence, and how many die there is unknown — and it has been that way for decades. Policymakers say they're taking steps to fix this broken system, but with little data to go by, responding to the mental health needs of those in county jails is like working in the dark. Sheryl Kubiak, dean of Wayne State’s School of Social Work, has spent her career researching the intersection of criminal justice and heath care. She served on the Task Force with Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and State Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget McCormack. Improving outcomes for inmates, connecting them with services and giving corrections officers the information they need requires an intake system that asks the right questions, Kubiak said. There are a variety of jail management software programs available to purchase, with little uniformity from county to county, Kubiak said. The software is expensive and takes training to learn how to use, making it difficult for jail administrators to justify changing even if their current system is not as effective as they’d like. “In the best case scenario, there would be a uniform system that all the jails would use,” Kubiak said, in a telephone interview. “But to require that, the state would have to fund it. And that would be a big ticket item.” Some jails, such as Kalamazoo County, are paper and pencil, Kubiak said, with no jail management information software at all. Nor is there a robust oversight mechanism to make sure county jails are operating as they should.

Democrats in Michigan have been mobilizing for months for a fierce general election fight against President Trump, determined not to lose this Midwest battleground as they did in 2016. Even before they know who their nominee will be, Democratic groups are pouring millions of dollars into anti-Trump ads here, portraying the Republican president as an unstable leader who threatens Americans’ healthcare and the nation’s security. A network of progressive groups across Michigan has already identified voters susceptible to voting against Trump and started reaching out to them on issues they care about most. Michigan’s presidential primary — the biggest of six Democratic contests Tuesday — will test the appeal of former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in a state likely to play an outsize role in deciding whether Trump wins a second term. Ken Jackson, an English professor at Wayne State University, grew up in Macomb County. He sees Trump’s swagger as a big part of his appeal to white working-class voters here, including many whose families fled Detroit for the suburbs in the “white flight” that began amid the racial tensions and riots of the 1960s. “A lot of that aggressive banter is very deeply connected to the cultural habits and speech patterns of these folks,” Jackson said. “That’s something they’re quite comfortable with. They associate that with authenticity and truth-telling.”

Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease of unknown causes that affects multiple organs in the body. It occurs in patients around the world and is highly prevalent in Detroit and Michigan. It is characterized by abnormal masses or nodules – granuloma formations – in various organs, including lungs and lymph glands, brains and heart. Sarcoidosis has been described for more than 150 years, but there are no specific and simple tests developed to diagnose this disease. A team of researchers led by Lobelia Samavati, M.D., associate professor in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics and Department of Internal Medicine at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine, has been working for more than 10 years to discover specific serological biomarkers of sarcoidosis and tuberculosis. With the help of a recent $1.98-million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Samavati’s research team aims to advance their work of developing biomarker technology for identification of biomarkers of sarcoidosis. “We believe that our technology will be able to harness the diversity of antibodies and can aid to identify protective antibodies in various diseases in humans, including viral respiratory infections such as the corona virus,” said Samavati. “We believe that this study is the beginning of new era to identify protective immunity in form of antibodies.” Sorin Draghici, the Robert J. Sokol, M.D. Endowed Chair in Systems Biology in Reproduction and professor of computer science in Wayne State’s College of Engineering, is collaborating with Samavati. He contributed to the design of the study and will supervise the data analysis.

Spreading as fast as the new coronavirus are half-truths, innuendo and downright dangerous lies around it, putting Michiganders’ health — as well as their wallets — at risk. One Michigan school district fought rumors that it shut down because of coronavirus. (It was a power outage.) A county health department faced accusations of hiding 800 potentially sick people in gypsum mines. (They weren’t.) And a hospital system was thought to confirm it had a patient with coronavirus. (It was a scam.) Meanwhile, the state health department is fielding calls from panicked residents, including one who wanted to know if he should destroy the Amazon package containing an office chair made in China. Matt Seeger, dean of Wayne State University’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, said he received this mail this week: Dr. Seeger, we would like you to participate in our efforts to prepare for coronavirus. Please click on this link. That email likely was designed to lure recipients into clicking the link, spreading malware into the computers or seeking personal information, he said. Seeger, a crisis communications specialist, said rumors can go beyond misleading or confusing; they can be downright dangerous. Some of the most harmful flimflam involves bogus preventative measures. There’s the dangerous claim, for example, that drinking bleach will prevent coronavirus. “If you drink bleach, you're going to the hospital,” Seeger said. “Maybe you won’t get coronavirus, but you’re going to be really, really sick.”

A late February study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that children 10 and under accounted for just 1% of all COVID-19 cases, for example, while adults in the 30-79 age groups represented a whopping 87%. The World Health Organization (WHO) found something similar in China, with 78% of patients falling between the ages of 30 and 69. “Older people are more likely to be infected, especially older people with underlying lung disease,” says Dr. Teena Chopra, medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at Wayne State University. “For this population, mortality rates for COVID-19 are about 15%.” In this sense, COVID-19 behaves a lot like seasonal flu. From 70% to 85% of all flu deaths and 50% to 70% of flu-related hospitalizations occur among people in the 65-plus age group, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 2002-2003 SARS outbreak similarly proved lethal for more than 50% of people over 60 who contracted the disease. “People living in long care facilities have common meetings, they share common rooms,” says Chopra. Common meetings and common rooms can too often mean common pathogens. The health system itself may be playing a significant role in putting seniors at risk. People with multiple medical conditions typically visit multiple specialists, and every such visit means entering a health care environment that can be teeming with viruses and bacteria. For now, Chopra advises older patients to postpone doctor visits that aren’t absolutely essential, like “their annual eye visit. Dental cleaning can be avoided too.” Telemedicine—conducting doctor visits that don’t require hands-on treatment online—can be helpful too, as can e-prescribing, with drugs being delivered straight to patients, sparing them exposure to pharmacies.

We’re entering a new era of space exploration in the United States. Private firms are pushing the boundaries of what is possible with technology and innovation. And the Trump Administration wants to get us back to the moon for the first time since 1972 as part of a longer strategy to put a human on Mars. Wayne State University has its own robotic dark sky observatory in New Mexico that can be operated remotely. “The Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory is a state-of-the-art 20-inch robotically-controlled remote observatory in the high desert of Rodeo, New Mexico, at an altitude of 4,128 feet,” according to the observatory’s page on WSU’s website. “This location has some of the darkest skies in the nation!” Edward Cackett is a Wayne State University astrophysicist. His research looks at trying to understand how material falls into black holes — a process called ‘accretion’ — as well as trying to understand the structure of extremely dense stars called neutron stars. “If we learn about how the black hole grows, how things fall into the black hole, it helps us understand better how galaxies form, how galaxies evolve, and that, of course, tells us eventually about how we come about — how we form solar systems and how everything evolves.”

Elizabeth Stoycheff, associate professor of communication, wrote an article for The Conversation. “You might have fallen for someone’s attempt to disinform you about current events. But it’s not your fault. Even the most well-intentioned news consumers can find today’s avalanche of political information difficult to navigate. With so much news available, many people consume media in an automatic, unconscious state – similar to knowing you drove home but not being able to recall the trip. And that makes you more susceptible to accepting false claims. But, as the 2020 elections near, you can develop habits to exert more conscious control over your news intake. Teach these strategies to students in a course on media literacy, helping people become more savvy news consumers in four simple steps.”

Learn the secrets of some of the most mysterious phenomena in space this Thursday, February 27, at Hopcat in Detroit. Wayne State Astrophysicist Ed Cackett will help you explore the university’s latest research on the physics of black holes and neutron stars, both some of the most compact objects in the universe. Neutron stars, for example, says Cackett, are some of the densest. “The material inside [a neutron star] is denser than an atomic nucleus. The equivalent is crushing down the entirety of humanity into the size of a sugar cube.” Cackett also studies black holes, one of the most misunderstood physical phenomena in popular culture. He says, with Wayne State’s Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory in New Mexico, he and other researchers can look at how objects fall into black holes, specifically, by measuring the light that’s emitted as they fall past the event horizon.

A proposed change in state law would take the first steps in formalizing support for a growing number of Michiganders raising their grandchildren. State representatives Kathy Crawford and Frank Liberti have sponsored legislation that would take first steps to better recognize and support older Michiganders raising grandchildren. Both bills are before the House’s Families, Children, and Seniors Committee, which Crawford chairs. The state, Crawford said, is already behind in recognizing the critical and exhausting work of grandparents thrust back into full-time parenting. And their numbers are growing. Twice as many grandparents today in Michigan report raising or helping to raise grandchildren than a generation ago — an estimated 120,206 Michiganders in 2019 compared to 58,220 in 1987, according to the survey, called the Older Michigander Needs & Solutions Assessment. Tom Jankowski, associate director for research at Wayne State University’s Institute of Gerontology, developed questions for the report. The language about caregiving for grandchildren shifted slightly between the first and second surveys, he cautioned. Still, he said, the questions were close enough to roughly capture how the caregiving landscape has grown over time. Child care is expensive, meaning that Michigan’s poorest families often turn to grandparents for help, said Jankowski. Those growing numbers, along with Michigan’s demographic shift toward an older population — 2.4 million Michiganders age 60 or older last year compared to 1.5 million in 1987 — show the stark challenge facing so many families across the state. 

Randall Commissaris, a Wayne State University associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, is studying the effects of using marijuana or alcohol when driving vehicles. Wayne State has several research projects underway, including the one by Commissaris, who runs a driving safety lab in the college of pharmacy and is studying the reaction time of people under the influence of marijuana or alcohol. Commissaris said the driving simulation places subjects in a 2001 Chevy Impala and presents a road filled with obstacles to drive around. "We collect data in a flight data-type recorder and look at driving performance using cannabis and while drinking," he said. "We worked with medical marijuana patients for two years, but in December 2018 when recreational became legal we started working with them." Under the influence or marijuana or alcohol, the reaction time is longer, but much of it depends with how much is consumed and their tolerance level. "We are still studying everything, but we are seeing a greater tolerance level with marijuana than alcohol," he said. "If the subject has a history with marijuana they are less affected in the driving test. There is a little evidence of that with alcohol but more with marijuana." Commissaris said Wayne State is planning to begin studies on edible cannabis products. "There is not enough research on cannabis," he said. "We want to do more, but it is complicated because the products and plants are highly variable in concentration." Another study is being conducted by Christine Rabinak, an associate professor in the WSU pharmacy college, who is conducting a study on the use of cannabis on (post-traumatic stress disorder) patients.

Does the thought of eating bugs make you cringe? You’re not alone, especially in further north areas like Michigan. “We have these harsh winters, [so] insects aren’t available,” says Julie Lesnik, an anthropology professor at Wayne State University who specializes in the evolution of the human diet and using insects as a food source. “It’s not a part of a lot of traditional diets in higher latitudes. “This isn’t just something that primitive people eat, this is a food resource that has been smartly used for millions of years and in a lot of ways we are silly for ignoring it.” But Lesnik makes the argument that eating — and farming — insects may make sense for a growing population where our food system leads to growing inequity, hunger and obesity. Bugs are also an environmentally-friendly food source and rich in nutrients, and a culture built around it with recipes and even a business in metro Detroit. WDET’s Anna Sysling spoke to Lesnik on the colonialist history of our bug aversion, the case for an insect-based farming system and how you can start dabbling in this diet.

Robert M. Ackerman, professor of law, wrote an article for The Conversation about recent legislation addressing the law barring members of the military from collecting damages from the federal government for injuries off the battlefield. Ackerman wrote: “The legislation represents progress for injured service members – but still limits who among them may press for damages.” The new law does not cover everyone. That’s because the legislation only allows claims by those who allege to have been victims of medical malpractice by military health care providers. And claims cannot be brought in federal court, as is normally the case under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Rather, they must be pursued through a Defense Department administrative procedure under regulations that the Department of Defense is required to draft.

Anne P. DePrince, professor of psychology at the University of Denver, and Jennifer M. Gómez, Wayne State University assistant professor, wrote a Conversation piece about the trial of media mogul Harvey Weinstein and the painful effects on women and minorities. “For months, he (Weinstein) has presented his pain to us, granting a hospital-room interview to catalog his suffering and using a walker on his way in and out of the courthouse. His defense team has argued he deserves your sympathy. They asked the judge to let Weinstein’s surgeon testify to confirm their client is “hurt and enfeebled. These requests for your compassion are reminders that sympathy is not automatic. Not everyone gets our sympathy when they show us their pain. Whose pain, then, are we most likely to see, believe and ultimately award our sympathy? And what do those tendencies mean for health outcomes and courtroom justice? As trauma psychologists, we have spent a great deal of time researching the impact of violence and how survivors are treated when they disclose. In studying trauma and intimate violence, we have learned much about whose pain is believed or disbelieved. Studies suggest there is bias against women and ethnic minorities in both the health care and criminal justice systems. Pain bias in the health care system.”

Kirsten Carlson, associate professor of law and adjunct associate professor of political science, wrote an article about President Trump’s future during post-impeachment, and what measures may be taken regarding oversight of the executive branch. “Oversight is one way to ensure government transparency. The Constitution authorizes Congress to exercise oversight as part of the carefully crafted balance of powers among the three branches of government. Impeachment is an important check on presidential power. However, it is the most rarely used of the multiple tools Congress has to review, monitor and supervise the executive branch and its implementation of public policy. Congress can also exercise oversight through the power of the purse, which allows it to withhold or limit funding. And it can use its power to organize the executive branch, which it uses to create and abolish federal agencies. In addition, Congress makes laws, confirms officials and conducts investigations.”

Wayne State University Law Professor Peter Henning said the Justice Department’s decision to overrule its own lawyers in the case of President Donald Trump’s longtime ally, Roger Stone, is a “slap in the face” to those attorneys.

The common cold is a top reason for missed work and school days. Most of us have two or three colds per year, each lasting at least a week. There's no real cure, but studies from the last several years show that some supplement containing zinc can help shorten the duration of cold symptoms by up to 40% — depending on the amount of the mineral in each dose and what it's combined with. Zinc has an interesting back story. It wasn't even acknowledged as an essential mineral for human health until the 1970s. But that changed thanks to the work of Dr. Ananda Prasad — a 91-year-old doctor who, decades ago, had a hunch that led to a better understanding of zinc's role in immunity. Back in the 1960s Prasad was studying a group of young men in Egypt who had not grown to normal heights and remained underdeveloped in other ways, too. Prasad wondered if the problem might be a lack of zinc. When Prasad gave them zinc supplements, the men grew significantly taller. "I couldn't believe it," he says. Prasad had never expected such significant growth. Some scientists challenged his findings, at the time, questioning the idea that zinc deficiency could even occur in humans. "It was controversial," Prasad says. But he pressed on with his research and  began to document the ways zinc influences immunity. Eventually, in the 1970's, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) declared zinc an essential mineral, fundamental to many aspects of cell metabolism. NAS established a recommended daily allowance, which is the daily amount that's sufficient for good nutrition. Prasad says he felt vindicated by this action. "Absolutely," Prasad told us from his home in Michigan, where he's a researcher and professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine. What came next in his career may be just as surprising. Prasad had demonstrated that zinc had an effect on immunity — so he figured that it might help against a ubiquitous scourge — the common cold.

Donulae Knuckles is known as “Nurse Knuckles,” and when she’s teaching, her most important lesson comes from when she suddenly found herself as the patient. Local 4 spoke with Knuckles on National Wear Red Day, which is designed to raise awareness for women’s cardiovascular health. Knuckles is a Detroit mother of five and a registered nurse for the past 23 years. She’s a PhD student, a graduate teaching assistant and an advocate for the American Heart Association. At the Wayne State College of Nursing, Knuckles teaches the next generation of nurses to care for the whole patient -- body, mind and spirit. She wants them to care for themselves, too. “It has become my passion and my purpose in this life,” Knuckles said. “This is what I do. I love it.”

President Donald Trump has been acquitted of two impeachment charges. The hearings have been endowed with an air of inevitability. But the predictable partisan conclusion of this process was upset by Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) surprising break from party lines. Romney made history with his vote to remove the president from office on the charge of abuse of power, making him the first senator to vote in favor of impeaching a president from his own party. “There are areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans. It’s hard to imagine that happening during a presidential election year,” says Marc Kruman, founding director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship and professor of history. Ultimately the Utah senator’s vote didn’t impact President Trump’s swift acquittal, but it did raise questions regarding the state of American politics and the role of congress moving forward. He says this impeachment process has, not surprisingly, been viewed through the lens of partisan politics. The unwillingness of elected officials to see beyond party has left American democracy in a fragile state, says Kruman. In order to restore some type of order he says there has to be a move toward compromise and consensus. “There are, in fact, areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans that they should work on. It’s hard to imagine that happening during a presidential election year.”