Mark Satta, assistant professor of philosophy at Wayne State University, said ”The House committee faces the challenge of trying to provide the American public with truthful information about the Jan. 6 attack at a time of deep partisan divide and historically low levels of public trust in government. Confronted with that reality, the committee seems to have decided upon a smart response: Show, don’t tell. Rather than simply telling the American public the facts, the panel’s first public hearing focused on showing what former president Donald Trump’s allies and supporters themselves have said and done. They paired that with the testimony of seemingly nonpartisan figures like Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards and documentary filmmaker Nick Quested. It’s not clear whether these hearings will make a demonstrable difference in the public’s perception of the Jan. 6 attack. Maybe they won’t. Maybe America’s partisan divisions are too deep."

Family, friends and former colleagues of the late Carl Levin, the longest-serving U.S. senator in Michigan history, gathered Sunday to honor the legacy of a man known for his unwavering dedication to public service. The memorial was held at the Levin Center at Wayne State University nearly a year after the Detroit Democrat, who served in the United States for 36 years and was the state's first Jewish senator, died in 2021 at age 87. While speaking about Levin, guests paid tribute to Levin's wife, Barbara, his three daughters, Kate, Laura and Erica and his older brother, Sandy Levin. They also spoke about the late senator as a man well-known for his self-deprecating sense of humor and terrible sense of fashion. "I think his life was truly ... an American story," said Sandy Levin, a former U.S. representative from Royal Oak, who told the story of their grandmother's arrival in the country.

Ali Abolmaali, a civil engineer and former chair of the civil engineering department at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), has been selected as the next dean of Wayne State University College of Engineering, effective Aug. 15. Abolmaali also is a Dr. Tseng Huang Endowed Professor in structural engineering and applied mechanics, the founding director of UTA Center for Structural Engineering Research, and the professor-in-charge of the Structural Simulation Laboratory at UTA. “We are extremely pleased to recruit this strong leader to Detroit,” says Mark Kornbluh, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “Ali has a proven track record of growing student enrollment, recruiting diverse faculty and growing research. Most important, he’s accomplished this with a leadership philosophy that embraces collaboration and genuine care for others.”

Vending machines usually dispense candy and soda, but not the one at Jackson County Jail. As part of a pilot program the jail’s vending machine dispenses Narcan, a drug used to save the life of someone who’s overdosing. Everyday five people in Michigan will die from an opioid overdose. However, a pilot program is trying to reduce those numbers by giving more people access to Narcan, without guilt, without shame and with discretion. The Jackson County Jail got the vending machine through a grant from Wayne State University. 

Vending machines distributing the opioid-overdose-reversing-drug Narcan are being installed in strategic locations in an effort to reduce the number of overdoses in Michigan and throughout the country. Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice has used grant money to place 15 vending machines across the state, in places like county jails, centers that provide services for drug users, and the university’s undergraduate library. “You could administer Narcan, and if you are wrong – and the person is not overdosing – there is no harm to the individual,” said Wayne State University Center for Behavioral Health and Justice program manager Matthew Costello. Costello speaks with Paul W. Smith about the benefits the machines have for the community, and how people can assess and decide to administer Narcan. “We’re very excited about this program…we know it’s a lifesaving program…,” said Costello. Some of the people who are at most of overdosing are those coming out of jail. “Narcan is just one approach that the CBHJ has to address this issue. Part of my responsibility is to set up assistance programming inside our county jails so those people who are opioid-involved coming into the jails can either continue or begin treatment for their opioid addiction while they’re incarcerated…” 

Earlier this year, I came to terms with the fact that the lingering darkness of winter mornings leaves me sluggish. So, when spring sprung a few months back, I opted to try something new. I started going for a walk around my neighborhood, throwing on some athletic leggings and my trusty Saucony shoes as soon as I got out of bed. Now, most mornings I walk 4 miles to start the day. The results were nearly immediate, even though my distance started out much shorter: I have more energy, time, and footsteps logged onto my fitness tracker (if I remembered to put it on). I’m thrilled I got into the habit—let my experience inspire you, too. If you’ve ever suffered from jet lag, getting morning sunlight may even help adjust to the new time zone, says Tarama Hew-Butler, DPM, PhD, FACSM, and a professor of exercise and sports science at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. “Sunlight, or daytime, is the strongest external cue, or "zeitgeber," which sets our circadian rhythm to a regular 24-hour daytime-nighttime cycle,” she says. “So, sunlight does help us wake up.”

Things have changed a lot in the two plus years since the novel coronavirus came on the scene. Americans have had to shelter in place, distance themselves from their loved ones, wear masks and sometimes quarantine for days to keep others safe. Although more than one million people have in the U.S. have now died from COVID-19, many are wondering what kind of precautions they should be taking around the virus, amid a simultaneous rise in transmission rates and drop in hospitalizations in southeast Michigan. Paul Kilgore is the co-director of the Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases at Wayne State University, as well as senior investigator for Henry Ford Health System’s Global Health Initiative. He says people should still be cautious around the virus because it’s still quite transmissible. “Now we’re seeing COVID-19 being able to transmit in the summer,” Kilgore says. “The other thing that is really important to know is that as the virus has mutated it’s become much more efficient at causing infection.”

In March, President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a joint task force with the goal of getting Europe off Russian gas and onto more of America’s fracked gas. Most Russian gas reaches Europe via pipeline, so getting U.S. gas to Europe will involve liquifying it and then shipping it across the Atlantic. And as shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States increase, so too do the threats from an unwelcome intruder inherently part of America’s natural gas mix — radioactivity. That’s because government figures indicate that much of the gas that will be shipped to Europe may come from the Marcellus and Utica, black shale formations in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. About 40 percent of natural gas produced in the United States comes from these formations, and, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, they have particularly high radioactivity levels. Radioactivity is a problem at multiple points along the natural gas production chain, and oilfield workers and communities in the Marcellus and Utica have been beleaguered by an array of radiological concerns, such as high levels of radioactivity found on public roads near a high school football field. “It is entirely appropriate to be discussing the radioactivity levels in LNG,” says Mark Baskaran, a geologist at Wayne State University in Michigan and a world-renowned expert on radon who has studied oilfield radioactivity in the Marcellus and Utica. However, it appears nobody in the United States or European governments behind the recent LNG deal is discussing radioactivity.

Wayne State University Law School alumnus Fred Harring donated $10,000 to expand the accessibility of “No Equal Justice” to the youth of Southeast Michigan, with an emphasis on Detroit. Released in February 2022, the book, authored by Professor of Law Emeritus Edward Littlejohn and Professor of Law and Director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights Peter J. Hammer, follows the story of George W. Crockett Jr. and how he fought racism and defended the constitutional rights of the oppressed. Harring hopes the donation will inspire a new generation of readers, historians, and social justice activists to learn about Crockett. 

Assault-style guns have been used in some of the country’s deadliest shootings. Researchers led by Cynthia Bir, professor and chair of biomedical engineering, at Wayne State University use gelatin to demonstrate how AR-15 style weapons create an “explosion inside the body” compared to handguns. “We see a lot more disruption. This round breaks apart. It does not exit, so it’s about 3,000 feet per second. All of that energy goes into the soft tissue,” said Bir. “It basically goes inside the body and creates an explosion…”    

By Sabine Bickford Last June, many residents of Detroit faced massive structural, economic, and health issues when flooding caused by heavy rainfall overwhelmed many of the city’s aging and unrepaired storm and wastewater systems – particularly in East Side neighborhoods such as Jefferson Chalmers. Researchers say that a combination of inadequate local infrastructure and global climate change meant that neither the storm nor the damage should have come as too much of a surprise. “There have been several news articles out there saying ‘Well, we’re having 500-year events every year,’” says Wayne State University civil and environmental engineering department chair William Shuster. “But really it’s off the scale, and there’s no way to really characterize these rainfall events.” May resident have been facing similar struggles for years. A collaborative study by WSU, the University of Michigan, Eastside Community Network, and several other local organizations found that over 40% of Detroit households surveyed between 2012 and 2020 reported household flooding. “This is something that everybody’s been struggling with around the country, around the world,” said Shuster. “If you’ve got a city, you’re struggling with stormwater or wastewater.” In April, Shuster joined several other researchers for a roundtable discussion at the Wayne State campus on Detroit’s recent flooding and infrastructure issues. The conversation was a part of the University Research Corridor’s Hidden Health Threats tour that brought together researchers, policymakers, and other community leaders to discuss some of the most pressing environmental issues facing Michigan communities.

By Georgea Kovanis The newest vending machines in Michigan aren’t dispensing pop or chips, they’re doling out Narcan, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Popping up at strategic locations, the machines represent the latest attempt to make Narcan more available to the public in an effort to quell the staggering number of overdoses in Michigan and across the nation. Using grant money, Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice has placed 15 vending machines across the state, including the university’s undergraduate library, as well as centers that provide services for drug users. Eight of the machines are located in county jails – Monroe, Jackson, Manistee, Washtenaw, Delta, Kalamazoo, Wexford and Oakland county jails – for use by inmates who are being released after serving time or, in some cases, by jail visitors. Jails are especially important locations because research shows drug users leaving incarceration are at high risk of fatal overdoses. “The data is clear about overdose rates about people post incarceration,” said Matthew Costello, program manager at the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice. “It’s been proven time and time again in state and state and site and site. So we understand that vulnerability. To ignore that is criminal in its own right.”

Car buyers will need some patience this summer as new and used vehicles are still slow to get on the lot. The car buying experience will feel more like a layaway purchase than a quick exchange negotiation as most cars that land on the lot have been claimed in advance. Pre-ordering has become the norm. Deliveries to the dealership have been slow to recover, although they have tripled since the beginning of the year. The backlog is starting at the auto plants. The summer of 2022 does look better than last summer in terms of lost production, said John Taylor, chair of Wayne State University’s department of marketing and supply chain management. Alternate suppliers, flexible design and reduced functionality have boosted production this year. “Time cures a lot of problems,” Taylor said. “Eventually, we’re going to get out of this. It’s still not going to be great for 2022 and 2023, but there’s some improvement.”  

Recovery following the trauma of a school shooting is not uniform – it varies by community, from school to school, across student subgroups and even among individuals. It is also impacted by factors like the availability of school counselors, barriers to accessing mental health support and pre-existing traumas. Family structure, how different communities grieve, and past experiences with gun violence and law enforcement can all inform this process as well. Because of these differences, measures commonly adopted by schools nationwide in response to school shootings — like doubling down on school police or bringing in grief counselors — should be tweaked or reconsidered to fit the needs of Black, Hispanic and immigrant communities, according to school trauma, crisis and security experts. As part of that crisis response, many lawmakers and school leaders have discussed increasing law enforcement and security in schools. However, this option may not be suitable for all students. Black and Hispanic students are already more likely to be in schools with police presence – which is associated with increased school arrests – than their white counterparts. “Schools cause trauma. And not just through school shootings, but in a myriad of ways, especially for historically marginalized and systematically oppressed groups,” said Addison Duane, a former elementary school teacher with a Ph.D. in educational psychology and now a professor at Wayne State University. “And I think that, in the wake of something as horrific and preventable as a school shooting, the trauma compounds.”   

The most effective intervention to preterm birth is the administration of a natural hormone, progesterone, in patients at risk for premature delivery. Two categories of patients have been eligible for this treatment: those with a short cervix and those with a previous preterm birth. But research published this week by researchers of the Perinatology Research Branch at the Wayne State University School of Medicine indicates that progesterone is not effective in reducing the rate of preterm birth in women with a history of such birth. “We have advocated that vaginal progesterone reduces the rate of preterm birth in women with a short cervix. This evidence is solid and derived from multiple studies including randomized clinical trials, meta-analyses and implementation research,” said Roberto Romero, M.D., DMedSci, chief of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Perinatology Research Branch and professor of molecular obstetrics and genetics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. “Some people believe that vaginal progesterone is effective not only in women with a short cervix but also in patients with a prior history of preterm birth. We have completed a systematic review and meta-analysis that shows that this is not the case.” 

Detroit’s maternal death rate is triple the national average. Nurses and advocates in the city say Black women in particular will face dire consequences if the U.S. Supreme Court criminalizes abortion. A leaked draft opinion suggests the high court this month is poised to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision nearly 50 years after it enshrined a Constitutional right to abortion without excessive government restriction. The ruling would trigger a 1931 state law banning most abortions, effectively outlawing the practice in Michigan and requiring more women to take on birth-related health risks. Researchers who track maternal mortality expect to see a corresponding increase in pregnancy-related deaths if abortion is outlawed, particularly among women of color. Black women in Michigan are three times as likely to die from pregnancy than white women. Gwendolyn Norman, a lifelong Detroiter, nurse, faculty member at Wayne State University and coordinator at the Alliance for Innovation in Maternal Health, said a large body of research has shown implicit biases and racial discrimination in the healthcare system affect Black women’s health. “The higher up on the socioeconomic level, the greater the disparity you see in birth outcomes for African American women,” Norman said. “They’re exposed to factor that are outside of their own personal control.” Norman said she’s interviewed Black women who have been ignored by healthcare providers when they bring up pain, irregular bleeding or other signs of troubles with their pregnancies. Black mothers are also less likely than white mothers to receive prenatal care, which makes them five times more likely to have a pregnancy-related death. “African Americans in general do not get the same treatment and care when walk into a healthcare institution,” Norman said. “They are regarded differently and treated differently. In critical situations where life and death decisions are being made, that disproportionately impacts people of color.”  

Over the past decade, poison control has been getting more and more reports of kids accidentally ingesting melatonin supplements. In fact, reports of melatonin ingestions among children jumped by 530% from January 1, 2012 to December 21, 2021, according to a new study published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. For the study, a team from the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, the Wayne State University School of Medicine (Varun Vohra, PharmD) and Boston Children’s Hospital analyzed data on children from the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System.

A new study identified a link between persistent racial residential segregation and worse diabetes health in Black adolescents with type 1 diabetes. These findings highlight the impact of residential location for young people with diabetes, Deborah A. Ellis, professor of family medicine and public health sciences at Wayne State University, said at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions. Ellis and colleagues evaluated the association between racial residential segregation and diabetes management and glycemic control among Black adolescents with type 1 diabetes. “In the world of adult diabetes, there has been a lot of focus on social determinants of health, but in pediatrics, there has been less,” said Ellis. The main outcomes measured were HbA1c and diabetes management. The results suggested that racial residential segregation was predictive of the diabetes health of Black youths with type 1 diabetes, even after controlling for effects of household income and neighborhood adversity. “It is interesting that racial residential segregation was even more explanatory than the adversity characteristics of the neighborhood,” said Ellis.

Elderly populations are some of the country’s most vulnerable – hampered by physical and health limitations, many survive on fixed incomes with no buffer in case of an emergency. Yet when their homes flood, seniors face thousands of dollars in repairs or face living in a toxic environment if they can’t afford them. Flooding has been an issue for close to half of Detroit households. Data collected through a survey and overseen by Wayne State University and the University of Michigan determined 43% of all Detroit households experienced flooding from 2012-2020.

Wayne State University plans to hold a memorial service this weekend for U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan’s longest-serving U.S. senator who died last year. Sunday’s service was announced by Levin’s namesake, the school’s Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School. The Detroit Democrat’s family, friends and colleagues plan to honor his life and legacy at the invitation-only memorial at 1 p.m. Sunday at the university’s Student Center Ballroom.