Wayne State University Chief of Police Anthony Holt wrote an opinion piece about his recent trip to Israel as a member of the Law Enforcement/Federation Security Detroit delegation. Joined by six other delegations in Israel hailing from Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, Holt participated in a seven-day training regimen proving to be “one of the most intense and eye-opening immersion activities that I have experienced during my 42-year law enforcement career.” The daily 10-hour training covered a wide swath of topics, including coping with terrorism threats, anti-Semitism as a global terror threat, connection between community and security/emergency forces, terror in the State of Israel from the perspective of a senior commander in the field, Judaism in the diaspora, simulation exercises and numerous other critical points of discussion. “There were numerous lessons learned and other takeaways that emerged from the training sessions. Overall, I developed a deeper understanding of how to employ situational awareness — being aware of our surroundings throughout the day and watchful of any warning signs.”

A recent observational study suggests that aspirin might be instrumental in preventing flare ups of chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (COPD), thereby improving quality of life for those who suffer from breathing difficulties because of it. Of the 1,700 participants followed in the three-year study, 764 reported that they took aspirin daily. The aspirin users in the 2019 study reported fewer flare ups and less shortness of breath than participants in a control group that did not use aspirin. The COPD patients who took aspirin also did better on the 50-question St. George Respiratory Questionnaire score, which measures quality of life in patients with diseases of airway obstruction. While daily aspirin users reported a lower incidence of flare-ups, the findings need further confirmation, the authors write. “The study demonstrated only a small effect on moderate exacerbations and didn’t indicate that aspirin is as effective as other therapies in reducing exacerbations,” says Amber Lanae Martirosov, PharmD, MSc, BCPS, clinical pharmacy specialist ambulatory care at Henry Ford Health Systems, and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University. “The observational study design also provides some limitations and should be a starting point, not a reason to change clinical practice.” Martirosov urged caution when interpreting the results because ratios tend to overestimate data in research. “Additionally, the study did not provide information about dosing, adherence, or duration of aspirin therapy,” she says. “As such, we are not able to make sound recommendations about aspirin therapy in terms of dosing or duration.”

The Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Wayne State University, in collaboration with NATO, is presenting a half-day symposium from 9 a.m. to noon on Thursday, July 25. The program will feature a keynote by former U.S. Senator Carl Levin titled “The Evolution and Future Direction of NATO.” A panel also will be held, featuring NATO Assistant Secretary General John Manza — a Wayne State University alumnus — and other distinguished security policy analysts and alliance scholars from Ohio State and Wayne State universities. Given the timeliness of this topic, the general public, media, as well as diplomatic and military officials in the region — including Canada — are welcome to attend the symposium and learn more about this key alliance. “In light of controversies over matters such as funding and future defense commitments, it is important for Americans, Canadians and others to know of NATO’s varied missions, which range from continental defense to naval rescue and multiregional peacekeeping,” said Frederic Pearson, Center for Peace and Conflict Studies director. “The alliance also has close relations with other organizations, including the European Union and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as individual national governments. Come and hear of these multiple facets.”

Presidential candidate Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., recently delivered confessions that are rare for members of Congress: They once struggled with and were treated for mental health conditions, he for post-traumatic stress disorder and she for depression. Discussing such problems out loud is a gamble in politics, and over the years few others in Congress have been forthcoming, but the chances are high that a number of politicians have faced mental health problems. An estimated 47 million people in the U.S. in any given year struggle with conditions such as anxiety or depression. Of those, 11 million have more serious conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Among the members of Congress who have shared their diagnoses are Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who started speaking openly about his PTSD after he was elected in 2014, and former Rep. Lynn Rivers, D-Mich., who shared in 1994 that she was successfully being medicated for bipolar disorder. "People use anything they can find against their opponent," said Arash Javanbakht, assistant professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Most insults, he said, are "rooted in ignorance or misinformation." He added, however, that he believes substance abuse or having a personality disorder would be most worrisome for a leader because they impair judgment.

Combining private and public dollars, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launched a new initiative to combat the same growing opioid crisis in the state that’s plaguing the country and killing thousands of Americans every year. The collaborative program, dubbed the Michigan Opioid Partnership, aims to remove barriers to those people who need to enter an opioid treatment program and find a path to success, Whitmer said Monday afternoon during a news conference on the campus of Wayne State University. In addition to the medication system in hospitals, the program will assist jails using a continuity-of-care approach focused on long-term treatment of opioid disorder using $1.5 million in funds. The Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State University will get the grant to coordinate the efforts. County jails will be selected for funding to work in partnership with the university team to serve inmates with addiction. The program will last 16-months and will work like an extension of the current program in place, explained Sheryl Kubiac, the dean of Wayne State University’s School of Social Work and Director of the Center for Behavioral Health. Kubiac said the program was already involved in 16 counties with jail administrators and community stakeholders. “We’re going to act as sort of the glue, or the external facilitators to go into the counties and get folks to talk to each other,” she said. “Inside the jails we are going to lead them through a needs assessment. Each one of the county jails that works with us will get approximately $250,000 to be able to apply to an area of need.” Kubiac said working with addicts in jail is different than when someone is in the emergency department at a hospital; in jail, a person is forced to look at the problem and can’t hide from it. “You don’t get the hospital ER where they come in and go out. People that go in jail are usually there for a few days so you get a chance to really engage them, or begin the process of engagement and that’s really important when someone is addicted – you need that time to really engage them,” she said. “The medications do a start to get people paying attention and stabilize, but then what we have to do is try and figure out why they were using and try to fix what’s happening emotionally or psychologically.”

Experts say there could be some challenges in finding qualified Detroiters to fill and maintain the production and skilled trade positions to a level that would please city leaders. City officials, however, say the initial response it has received from interested Detroit residents — more than 11,000 — signals that many Detroiters could be willing and able to take on the new jobs. Detroit is leading the effort to screen applicants for the positions. It’s going to be critical that Detroiters are prepared when they apply for the jobs, said Marick Masters, a professor of management at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business. “Today’s auto workers are much more skilled," he said. "It requires a lot more knowledge than in the past. People aren’t just going to… like they did in the '30s and '40s, walk into the plant and say 'I’m ready' and they’re going to take you that very day. I think what we have to do in Detroit is make certain that our workforce is as ready as possible.”

A peregrine falcon chick is recovering from a concussion after Wayne State University police rescued him from a grassy median at a busy intersection last week. Police were responding to a call about a big bird near the intersection of Cass and Warren in Midtown when two officers spotted the injured chick Wednesday night. “As we got closer, we could see blood close to the beak,” Officer Matt Roznowski tells the Metro Times. He and his partner Asaad Fradi gingerly placed the chick in a padded bag and took him back to the police station. “I have a big heart for animals,” Roznowski says. Afraid the chick may die without medical care, Officer Heather Glowacz drove the chick to Spirit Filled Wings Raptor Rehabilitation in Romeo. The male chick is now in the good hands of Department of Natural Resources volunteer and falcon expert Dave Hogan. “He had a little bit of a concussion,” says Danielle Durham, a DNR nesting coordinator. “He’s doing OK.” 

Matthew Larson, assistant professor of criminal justice, wrote a piece about Juneteenth (June 19) marking “the celebration of the de facto end of slavery in the United States.” (This article is republished from a June 19, 2018 edition of The Conversation). Larson points out, however, that for hundreds of thousands of African-Americans stuck in pretrial detention – accused but not convicted of a crime, and unable to leave because of bail – that promise remains unfulfilled. “While Juneteenth is a momentous day in U.S. history, it is important to appreciate that the civil rights and liberties promised to African-Americans have yet to be fully realized. As legal scholar Michelle Alexander forcefully explains, this is a consequence of Jim Crow laws and the proliferation of incarceration that began in the 1970s, including the increase of people placed in pretrial detention and other criminal justice policies. There are 2.3 million people currently incarcerated in American prisons and jails – including those not convicted of any crime. Black men comprise 40 percent of them, even though they represent just 13 percent of the U.S. population. Larson adds, “Juneteenth celebrates the freedom of black Americans and the long, hard road they were forced to traverse to gain that freedom. But as criminologists like me have maintained time and again, the U.S. criminal justice system remains biased, albeit implicitly, against them.”

A recent study shows that the number of people living with MS is on the rise. A recent MS Prevalence Study funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society shows that in 2010 the estimated 10-year prevalence of adults in the U.S. was 727,344 cases, not the 400,000 that had previously been thought. In addition, the study shows the prevalence of MS cases from 2000 to 2017 is now estimated at 913,925 cases, though that number may be as high 1,000,000. Dr. Robert P. Lisak, who specializes in neuroimmunologic diseases at Wayne State University School of Medicine, said that an initial increase in the numbers of people with MS was thought to be because of better diagnostic tools and more awareness of the disease. "But over the last 10 to 20 years we think there are more cases," Lisak said, though nobody knows why. The problem is if you don't know the cause of the disease you can speculate all you want, but you don't really know," he said. "But there is probably no one single cause or one single risk factor," Lisak said. Lisak said there are new medications out that delay or even prevent progression of the disease. But researchers still need to find out what ultimately causes MS — the mechanisms of what causes attacks, what causes attacks to shut off and what causes progression. Until that is known it is hard to develop therapies, he said. "We need to get more basic knowledge in order to make further progress."

Twenty days ago, Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert had a stroke, but recovery from such an attack can take months, according to local doctors. Gilbert went to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak on May 25 because he was feeling poorly. He had a stroke while at the hospital early the following morning, Quicken Loans officials have said. A day following Gilbert's stroke, the company said he had a "catheter-based procedure" and was put in the intensive care unit. To treat a stroke, neurologists sometimes use a catheter-based procedure called a mechanical thrombectomy, which aims to bust or remove a blood clot that is blocking the blood supply to the brain, doctors from the University of Michigan and Wayne State University who have not treated Gilbert told The Detroit News. Such strokes are known as ischemic strokes. "A thrombectomy is for the more severe ischemic stroke when there is a large vessel obstruction," said Dr. Kumar Rajamani, medical director of the comprehensive stroke program at Wayne State. He added that these instances occur in 5-10 percent of all ischemic strokes. Ischemic strokes account for 87 percent of all strokes, according to the American Stroke Association. They are less severe than the second kind of stroke caused by the rupturing of a blood vessel, Rajamani said.

Prosecutors in Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office have dismissed all remaining cases against those charged with Flint water crisis-related crimes, officials said Thursday. But the office’s Flint Water Crisis prosecution team said it would pursue a fresh investigation and could refile the dropped charges or add others. Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University and former federal prosecutor, said it’s rare for prosecutors to scrap the cases and start fresh. But “it’s hard to try a case based on someone else’s charges,” referring to the turnover from former attorney general Bill Schuette’s team to Nessel’s. “The involuntary manslaughter [charges were] going to be a tough one to win at trial. They may just decide that maybe it’s better that we just back off for a little while and make sure we have a good case,” Henning said.

The late Detroit News editor and publisher Jonathan Wolman was honored Thursday afternoon by the awarding of a scholarship in his name during the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation luncheon at Wayne State University. Every year, the foundation presents $2,000 scholarships bearing the name of Parks, the late civil rights activist and longtime Detroit resident, to Michigan high school seniors. This year, an additional award was handed out in honor of Wolman, who died in April at age 68. Kim Trent, president of the foundation, said she was grateful for Wolman's commitment to supporting the foundation and the scholarship. "He was not a native Detroiter, but he embedded himself into the fabric of southeast Michigan and made sure the paper he helmed also stayed connected to the community and served in meaningful ways," she said

Understanding and confronting the recent rise in anti-Semitism and other forms of hate was explored recently at Jewish Ferndale’s bi-monthly discussion series. Local journalist Julie Edgar moderated a conversation featuring Howard Lupovitch, history professor and director of the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State University, and Carolyn Normandin, ADL Michigan regional director. “All anti-Semitism is reprehensible,” Lupovitch said. The harder anti-Semitism of the right is perpetrated by xenophobic, white nationalists, such as those who marched and chanted against Jews in Charlottesville, Va. He said homegrown white terrorists carried out mass shootings of Jews at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and Chabad of Powway near San Diego. The left’s anti-Semitism is “not as dangerous and menacing as anti-Semitism on the right. They are not the same,” Lupovitch said. He contended that “if the Israel-Palestinian conflict was resolved, much of the anti-Semitism (on the left) would dissolve.” Lupovitch also suggested “the rhetoric of the last couple of years has emboldened haters to be more confrontational.”

A new study offers a solution to the problems of jail overcrowding and recidivism in Michigan: Invest more in mental health and drug treatment. Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice spent five years reviewing treatment and jail-diversion programs in 10 counties. Researchers found that people who got treatment for mental health disorders were less likely to return to jail. “Training law enforcement to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness is really important,” says Sheryl Kubiak, dean of WSU’s School of Social Work who led the study. “When we did pre- and post-interviews, officers would tell us things like they didn’t believe in mental illness, they just thought it was bad behavior. If we can decrease the number of people who go into costly confinement and deter them to treatment, I think we will do a lot better.” 

Eric Decker once reached a large audience as a radio talk show host under the name Eric Thomas. He launched his career at Banana 101.5, a rock radio station in Flint, then worked all over the country, including several years blogging and hosting at 97.1 The Ticket sports radio station in Southfield where he covered the Lions, Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons. Now Decker hopes to reach people as an attorney. Recently wrapping up his 1L year at Wayne State University Law School, he is clerking this summer at Maiorana PC, a small patent law firm in St. Clair Shores. “Radio was certainly good preparation for the public speaking aspect of law, but I really benefitted from all the show prep I did over the years,” he says. “The time I spent researching in radio was a good warm up.” A political science major at WSU after studying at Mott Community College and Oakland Community College, Decker is one of two “LawStart” students who were the first in the program to be accepted into Wayne Law. The highly competitive program allows students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to earn both their bachelor's degree and law degree from Wayne State in six years, instead of the usual seven.  

A diagnosis of a life-threatening illness is an enormous shock wave to any family. But there are extra challenges involved when that diagnosis happens for a teen or young adult. While their friends are getting ready for the prom or for college, they will be going through treatment and having tough conversations with family and doctors. Cynthia Bell is an assistant professor and research scientist at the Wayne State University College of Nursing, and has studied end-of-life conversations with teens and young adults. 

Around 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. Most of us think of pain as something that arises after a physical injury, accident or damage from an illness or its treatment. But researchers are learning that, in some people, there can be another source of chronic pain. Repeated exposure to psychological trauma, or deep anxiety or depression — especially in childhood — can leave a physical imprint on the brain that can make some people more vulnerable to chronic pain, scientists say. EAET is a different sort of psychotherapy. It’s one of several behavioral therapies (among other interventions) included in a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services titled “Pain Management Best Practices.” According to the report, published May 9, “Research indicates that EAET has a positive impact on pain intensity, pain interference, and depressive symptoms.” EAET was developed in 2011 by psychologist Mark Lumley at Wayne State University and his colleague Dr. Howard Schubiner. 

Kim Trent, Wayne State University Board of Governors chair, wrote a piece about stroke risk and current research involving our region. “Wayne State University researcher and Detroit Medical Center emergency room doctor Phillip Levy told policymakers attending the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference he hopes data he gleaned from emergency room visits to the Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Hospital can be used to inform smarter approaches to the cardiovascular risks facing Detroiters. A typical resident of the 48236 ZIP code in Grosse Pointe can expect to live to age 82. But a person who lives less than 10 miles away in Detroit’s 48201 ZIP code has a life expectancy of only 69 years. Michigan ranks 42nd out of the 50 states in cardiovascular health, with 298 stroke or heart disease related deaths per 100,000 residents each year. The national average is 257 cardiovascular-related deaths per 100,000 residents. Levy is optimistic that gathering information like this on a data platform will allow researchers, public health experts, and physicians to explore links between health outcomes and factors such as employment, environment, race, income and education. Levy thinks data platforms like the one he touted on Mackinac Island may help us better understand the role that factors like racism play in the development of hypertension and other medical conditions. “Every time I put those maps up,  I hear that gasp in the audience and  people are just astonished that that’s such a problem,” said the physician. “You want to take it to another level," he says. “You have all the things that an individual can do, but [the question is] how can we from a policy or community health perspective change some of the structural things that are involved?”

The movement for suffrage spanned from the mid-19th century to the early 20th, and was advanced by women with a range of political priorities and viewpoints. They were progressives, in the broadest sense of the word: They believed in pushing for social change and using politics for the betterment of humanity. Yet many of their views might seem shocking today, especially to Americans who identify with the same “progressive” movement of which suffrage activists were a part. By and large, white American suffragists were racist, arguing that giving the vote to white women would cancel out the influence of newly enfranchised black men. This was as much a matter of political strategy as personal prejudice, says Liette Gidlow, associate professor at Wayne State University who is working on an upcoming book on this subject. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and so-called grandfather clauses kept many black men away from the polls in the years following the Civil War, even after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment gave them the vote. “Many leading … white suffragists were deeply afraid that … [if] the Susan B. Anthony amendment”—which proposed women’s suffrage—“would lead to the return of African Americans ... to the polls, that would damage support for the amendment,” Gidlow said. Even after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, many states passed laws limiting the voting rights of black Americans, including black women.

Wayne State right-hander Hunter Brown saw the pre-Major League Baseball projections, that had him a top-100 prospect. But he tried not to get caught up in that as one pick after another went by, first Monday night, then mid-day Tuesday. The patience paid off when the Houston Astros took him in the fifth round. "Honestly, you know, you wait your whole life, as long as you play baseball starting in Little League, to hopefully sit there and hear your name called," Brown said. "And you see your name go up on the screen. It's a pretty exciting feeling. It's nothing like you've ever felt. It was awesome." Brown, 20, was taken with the 166th pick in the draft. Interestingly, Wayne State's best showing in the draft was another right-hander, Anthony Bass, who was selected in 2008 — with the 165th pick. "So he went one ahead, huh?" Brown said, laughing. "We were trying to find out what pick he went. We knew he went in the fifth round. Anthony's great, he's had a big-league career. And he's been kind of a mentor to me, this year especially. So, hey, 165 or 166, or anything range, it's awesome." Bass, 31, is in his eighth season in the major leagues, now with the Seattle Mariners. But over the offseason, during a fall scout day on campus and during Bass' annual camp at Wayne State, he made sure to pass along his cell number to Wayne State coach Ryan Kelley — to give to Brown.